| ▲ | mmooss 20 hours ago | ||||||||||||||||||||||
> Election is a bad way to choose almost anything. Except the alternatives! No form of government is more effective, competent, just, or free of corruption. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | hayst4ck 18 hours ago | parent | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
That's false. Everything comes down to good leadership. Monarchies with good leadership very well might have incredibly effective anti-corruption techniques and competency. China is managing a billion people and their infrastructure and tech is incredible. The problems are two fold. The first is vetoing of bad ideas. No leader is right 100% of the time, and when they are wrong, someone must have the power to veto. There must be some way for reason to triumph over power, and a leader who chooses to be responsible is capable of deferring to expertise. The second is succession. A good leader today may be succeeded by rotten leader tomorrow, but both have the same legitimacy, because the legitimacy comes from power alone and not reason. > effective, competent, just, or free of corruption. These things are a result of culture, not a result of the government itself. The government influences culture, but they are first and foremost functions of culture, specifically a culture of tolerating speaking truth to power, dissent, critical thinking, tolerance, and solidarity. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | bruce511 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
That's the point the parent made. Elections are suitable for political officers. Once you start electing other jobs, like judges or plumbers, then you get whoever you elected, rather than necessarily a person able to do the job. In other words, getting elected is a specific skill set. Doing the job is a different skill set. In most fields those skill sets do not overlap. Even in govt the overlap is marginal. Which is why some elected officials are pretty useless at actually "governing". To my American friends all I can say is "you voted for this". | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | Aspos 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
This is a dangerous axiom which will take you to wrong conclusions. Elected officials may be better, more efficient and less corrupt at a local level, but this does not scale. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | ekianjo 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
> free of corruption. There are just plenty examples of corruption among the people we elect, everywhere. | |||||||||||||||||||||||