I think the Greeks called our form of government an oligarchy. Elections as popularity contests are so easily swung by money.

Instead, democracy was determined to be selecting public officials by random lots.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

I guess it's a bit like the jury system.

I read an article not long ago on here about how promotions in companies should also be done by lottery in order to break up cabals.

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whimsicalism 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I think the degree to which money swings general elections is vastly overrated and would love to see your evidence to the contrary.

No amount of spending will get you a democrat senator in Texas, for instance.

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roguecoder 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

It is less that it swings elections, though it has marginal effects via voter mobilization, and more that it keeps candidates from even running at all: https://data4democracy.substack.com/p/money-doesnt-buy-elect...

Money won't get you a Democratic senator in Texas, but it makes you 100x more likely to get you a Republican lawyer than an average Republican.

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awesome_dude 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

And there were a number of State supreme court elections that were alleged to have heavy monetary investment from a couple of billionaires that did not end up working in their favour.[1]

For that matter there is an Australian billionaire whose "investment" also does not appear to have worked in his favour [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Wisconsin_Supreme_Court_e...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Palmer

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thijson 2 days ago | parent [-]

I read somewhere that Rupert Murdoch was able to swing some elections a while ago in Australia and the UK. That was through his media ownership though.

	▲	roguecoder 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		The toxic impact of Fox News is longitudinal, rather than being about a single election, and mostly acts by pushing conservative parties to the far right: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/fox-news-incomparable-rol... There are other ways for money to impact politics beyond individual general elections. As well as funding community organizing and creating long-term propaganda, it's much easier to impact ballot initiatives (paid signature gathering works, for example, where paid canvassers don't.)

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awesome_dude 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Public politics, and private company politics are very similar, although private company politics are less open to scrutiny.

The issue with the lottery is the need to ensure that the candidates both want the role, and are capable of doing it.

The latter, who is the right person to say "X is unqualified because.. " (and the Peter Principle suggests that just because someone was good at a lower job, eventually they're going to be put into a job they are unqualified for)

The theory with the current style that the person who puts themselves forward most definitely desires to win the job, and, as they rise up through their party system, have some level of competence, as adjudged by the people they have convinced to put them forward as a candidate.

Further, the adversarial nature is supposed to then mean that that person's opponents can call out the reasons that that person isn't suitable for the job.

Unfortunately, this ends up being a muck raking exercise, and the complaints might not amount to anything more than innuendo, further, there's no guarantee that they will even be heard (the supporters will provide evidence that the opponents themselves are not qualified to make any criticism)

Unfortunately a lot of elections these days, US or otherwise, tend not to end up being "This candidate is awesome, let's vote them in", but, instead "the incumbent is terrible, get someone, anyone, to replace them" - in the US Biden was voted in because Trump 1.0 was deemed a failure, and then Trump 2.0 was voted in because Biden was deemed a failure. Right now the Democrats appear to be on the rise again because Trump 2.0 and the Republicans are being deemed a failure. This isn't to diminish the wins by some actually good candidates though (although how good they are remains to be seen, and is a matter of... opinion).