Future Goverments

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

Well this is a hard topic for me to pose correctly. (i appologize to others but as an american i can only write this from an american point of view)

I see represenative goverment failing, on a majority because of a large seperation between the powerfull and the non powerfull. The constitution makes up for this by saying that anyone MAY become powerfull. But because it doesnt say CAN the gap increases.

The representatives do not represent the public on a sample of it.

The main problem that i see which got me a high grade in american goverment class(mainly because i had a POV not because of the POV’s merrit) that the american goverment is failing due to it being too rigid in a changing world.

The constitution was rattified by a people trying to figure out railroads and telograhs, but now that the world has shrunk i think changes should be made.

this topic has been discussed primatively before some of you have agreed that changes should be on the way. I am too uninformed of the problems with represenative goverment, the biggest thing i see is that is has yet to work in the past, why should it now? it always leads to bigger and worse tyrants than before.

Perhaps if the constitution was a bit more looser to change this would not be an issue.

2

It’s worked in England for a very long time now, and ours was written way before yours.

In fact America exists only because we refused to give you (in the historical sense) representation in parliament, if we had the war of independance might never have happened. We managed to keep Canada & Australia for a long time. There’s a very good series playing at the moment in England called Empire, narrated and written by Niall Ferguson. If it comes over to America I’d recommend you check it out, will tell you a lot about the history of your country too. I’m sure they’ll be something about it on Channel 4’s website (that’s the English C4, I don’t know if you have one).

If you’re wondering whether we will develop some sort of corporate government or a meritocracy or something like that, I somehow doubt it. I think once people have a representational government they are loathe to give it away, the only reason they would would be by force or because their country was going down the pan and a charismatic leader offered an easy solution.

3

Thats just it though we are going down the pan but a charismatic leader is the opposite direction i can think of to go

4

A good friend of mine, who is American and a Historian, believes that by the non-changing nature of the Constitution it’s harder for the Government to takeaway personal rights. Or erode what is good about their Governmental system.

But personally and I’ve posted this on the newsgroups.philosophy, I think America is just a form of elected Plutocracy. Meaning it’s the people who have the money that have the real power. While the populace vote and elect, it’s the people with money and the lobby groups that control the decision processing through things like campaign funds and donations.

What follows is the above statement a bit more fleshed out.

Pax Vitae

5

The way I see it is representative governments will fail when people start to sincerely believe that their leader doesn’t represent them anymore. As of now that has become a common belief and I’m beginning to worry. The popular belief is that bush shouldn’t go to war on iraq yet he’s gonna do it anyway. If people continue this way then the situation will continue to get worse. But even if the leaders listen to what the public wants there is still no personal level between leader and citizen. No one really looks up to them no one thinks any more of their leader than they do their favorite pop singer. So to me it’s only a matter of time until we have britney spears running for office. We had jello biafra (singer for a political punk band) run for presidency and of course the fans voted for him and his party. There’s also jessy ventura who ran for office and won. I really honestly believe that we will have celebrities in office eventually. And for all the wrong reasons. At that point I think I’ll pretty much give up on politics and move to canada or something. It may correct itself though. Who knows?

6

Aren’t you forgetting Mr. Ronald Regan??? Actor, President!

7

I think it’s a case that sometimes people in power have to make difficult decisions and going to war is a decision the majority will oppose most of the time. Last night Blair had a grilling on TV about why he wants to go to war, it was a very good debate led by Jeremy Paxman with a mixture of ordinary people asking the questions.

He made some very good points however

  1. That if war of Afghanistan had been suggested by him in Aug 2001 people would have looked at him as if he was cuckoo.

  2. If Al’Quaeda had been able to get hold of more powerful weapons than the planes they used, they would have used them.

You have to be careful in distinguishing a leader making a hard choice based on the evidence before him, often making a choice that the population doesn’t even realise has to be made. and that they are just going against the majority.

I think it is often the case that a country makes contradictoruy demands on it’s government. It may ask for, say in the case of Britain, a better helath care system, but then resist any tax rises. What it’s asking for is condradictory, it’;s a sking for more money to be spent, but then saying, we don’t want to give it to you. AT this point the government has to decide to go against the public whichever route it chooses.

It’s the same for this current Iraq situation, the public first of all are saying “How can you have let Sept. 11th and other terrorist attacks happen” but then saying “We don’t want to go to war”. What choice does Bush/Blair/etc. have? They either have to nip the problem of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the bud in order to ensure that terrorists don’t get them, or they have to sit back and wait for the disaster to happen so they get the mandate from the people to go out and sort the terrorists and their (potential) arms suppliers out, i.e. Iraq/N.Korea/(Pakistan??)/Whoever else is not too worriedabout who they sell their weapons of mass destruction to. So they’re between a rock and a hard place, either act now and stop a potential tragedy, or wait till the tragedy happens and then everyone will say, why doidn’t you do anything?

So all in all, this isn’t the act of people ignoring the people, it’s that the people themselves are demanding two contradictory things from their leaders. It should be plain to see, I’m surprised that anyone would be against the war. All the people I’ve spoken to so far come up with stupid arguments, like “we’ve got weapons like that, why shouldn’t they” (errrrrrrr, are you really that stupid or just suicidal), “who says our governments are any better than theirs, what right have we to interfere” (cause they’re threatening our nations you dumb idiot), “it’s all about oil” (No, you stupid idiot it’s not, if it were they could sort out a deal with Saddam to get his oil in 10 seconds flat. Fing bandwagon jumpers, bet you don’t know how stupid that comment actually is do you?).

8

2nd time ive wrote this

While i appreciate any input please do not focus on american and its current status.

I agree completly with the views on dissassotation with the leaders and choice inbetween two kings.

I have been working on a form of goverment.
Its representational but its more micro than macro. Grouping people by a set of changing numbers(the numbers can change due mainly to death.) the grouping is primary voting but has uses outside of voting. People are grouped by tweenty these tweenty elect for their group a represenative. the people do a general vote on a issue deciding by majority on what their group vote will be. The represenative then votes for the group. Also the represenatives are grouped by their group’s number(first tweenty are the first group, second are second and so on) the groups are represenatives go by fourty and from fourty they will elect one regional legeslator.

Ill stop here before i give it all away. The system could be compared in some ways to american but only because thats my view point on goverment. But the key difference is that it makes geopolitical issues into state/country wide issues. It will not allow any political party. The groups will be setup so that they are diverse. we may see a 80 year old vote with a 20 year old, most likely a black man voting with a asian woman, a poor man voting with a rich woman. It would be very conservative toward campeigns for lower and higher positions.

9

I think we will see a growing consolidation of one big government, most likely something like, if not actually, NATO. Although not really seen as a government, acts very much like one. Furthermore, countries governments will all turn democratic and NATO will instill it’s strong hold over them, invariably making them puppet governments. I wonder what people with a background in history will make of this, especially in relation to Russia and the puppet governments it had all over Europe, specifically prior to World War II.

What’s your take?

10

In the past things come together under one name only to seperate in time to broken fragments which are used later to combine things into a new one thing wich breaks even futher in the future.

Man creates society from a need to be social, but because Men are never agreeable societys are at war witch each other over nothing but assertations.

IF we the people of earth do infact consolidate, the engery required to do so would be such a strain upon those people of earth that the consolidation wouldnt hold. BUT as the world grows stronger with every attempt the next turn at consolidation may be a more permiable state.

11

Actually with how things are in the world I think our american government has done well for how shaky of a system we have. Compared to other nations we have fared well above average and I have a deep trust in capitalism(if not democracy). However if I were the single forefather I would view government as more of a god then a force. maybe government should be something that doesn’t restrict anything and let’s the people run like the people see fit. Were talking minimal rules and borders. A god-like government would only step in when it would see fit to justify murders and violence. A god-like government that only guards the borders and has the people’s safety in mind and not our society. That’s how I think the government should be. That’s my idea of a future government since we’ve all seen government’s with too much power in today’s world. However I know government can’t totally cater to all our beliefs let alone mine. So I’m fine with the government I have now. Hell, it could be worse.

12

Actually with how things are in the world I think our american government has done well for how shaky of a system we have. Compared to other nations we have fared well above average and I have a deep trust in capitalism(if not democracy). However if I were the single forefather I would view government as more of a god then a force. maybe government should be something that doesn’t restrict anything and let’s the people run like the people see fit. Were talking minimal rules and borders. A god-like government would only step in when it would see fit to justify murders and violence. A god-like government that only guards the borders and has the people’s safety in mind and not our society. That’s how I think the government should be. That’s my idea of a future government since we’ve all seen government’s with too much power in today’s world. However I know government can’t totally cater to all our beliefs let alone mine. So I’m fine with the government I have now. Hell, it could be worse.

13

i must say to be an american is a great thing even with the adversity we face as a nation… were certianly not perfect but you wont hear me complain… anyway id like to throw out the idea of communism. just to point out the original idea of communism is not as it is precieved and carried out by cuba or the former soviet union.
the real idea of communism was ingenious but its down fall was that it needed honest people with virtue and an altruistic attitude (willingness to do good for others benefit) unfortunitly communism fails because people cant get along and cant learn to share… the theroy behind communism has always intriged me … id like to hear some input thanks…

14

I like socialism/communism but because everyone pools money together you loose motivation to do your normal job.

Man wants to care for society but really only cares for imediate Family

15

i read a book called utopia in the book the author suggests a communist society but without money… basically you have no monetary system so people are never richer or poorer then anyone else this forces poeple to work together to accomplish whatever it is that needs done… its a thought that i was intrigued by even though it could probably never happen…

16

I think membership of unions should be compulsory and each union could have elected representatives in parliament, of a number depending on size. The economic system I advocate is not really either capitalism or socialism by conventional definitions, I’d describe it as a form of syndicalism wherein the employees (members of democratic unions) hold the majority of the shares in a company, so while companies can compete and workers have an incentive for re-investment and technological advance (job security). Also, as shareholders, they would no doubt be reluctant in the extreme to allow the disproportionately high wages to CEOs that we see today. If anyone can point out the flaws in this I’d appreciate it, since I’m still developing my views and I haven’t thought this through properly yet.

17

hmmm so could money be removed? Besides due to globalization things in richer economys are moving to a service style industry. Thus we are actually moving toward bartering again.

18

One thing that I think is useful is to remember that the form that the representative government takes is very important. For instance, I think that most systems of proportional representation are superior to the geographical, winner-take-all system that the U.S. has now. Also, citizen panels, (random samples of the population brought together to legislate) have also been proposed as supplements to representative government. So, although representational governments have major problems, I think the solution is to improve the ways in which these governments operate. That is, the mechanisms by which legislation and administation get done in government vary wildly in thier successfulness. For instance, the randomly sampled citizen panels, where they have been used in the United States, have been pretty successful in creating fair, representative and good government. The trick is to get all the value judgements of the entire population heard (the fairness critera), and yet have the outcome be based on deliberation and the best available evidense (the truth criteria). I think that it is possible to design situations in which we give incentive have all voices heard and yet come to a sensible outcome that all (or more likely, most) agree is fair.