[kristofferR]

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. [1] [2]

Since the American system forces people into two camps/parties based on ideology instead of the delivered results, the results suffer while the ideological conflict is enhanced.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

[danieltillett]

This is a bit of a hobby horse of mine, but the reason is the number of elected representatives has not kept pace with the population growth. When the USA was founded there were about 20,000 electors per representatives and now in some seats there are over a million.

If you want representation you need to be able to meet and talk to your rep - more importantly they need to be able to acquire your vote without the need for advertising. Remove the need for advertising and you remove the need for money and the corruption that flows.

[ab5tract]

I agree fully! Apparently they stopped adding representatives when they filled up the space in the capital building. I've been intending for ages to pull up the ratio mandated by the constitution to see how many "missing" representatives we have today.

[Doe22]

It looks like Article 1 Section 2 has what you're looking for, specifically "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative" [1]

Wikipedia also seems to provide a good summary of the issue. [2]

[1] https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri...

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

[anovikov]

How about starting from the other side? Decreasing the number of electors to be more the way it was when USA was founded? So people with no income earning property ('passive income' as it is called here), do not vote? Before 1820s, they didn't.

[nkohari]

If you're interested in fixing the problem the article discusses, this is pretty much exactly the wrong approach. You would actually be hard-pressed to find a solution more diametrically opposed to fixing the problem.

[graphitezepp]

That would be the fastest way to regress back into feudalism, you know if that is what you are in to.

[anovikov]

My belief is that post-scarcity society with very high technological unemployment and universal democracy are fundamentally incompatible. People who are net recipients from the government, should not vote, or they will vote the society into collapse. Can they ever vote for anything but more free stuff?

Other problems are fixable with more attention/funding to law enforcement, and yes using all the AI toys: crime prediction, drones, etc.

[pjc50]

If it's truly a "post-scarcity" society, people can have all the free stuff they want. If they can't, then it's still a scarcity society.

More law enforcement is rarely the solution to any long-term problem: that's how you end up with the East German situation where 1/4 of the population was Stasi informers.

[ant6n]

The stasi informal informers where there to monitor attitudes of people, not prevent crimes and either way the system wasn't particularly effective. Overall in East-Germany, people were not very afraid of police ('friend and helper'). Police didn't randomly shoot people.

I'd say the US is a better example of a police state than the GDR.

[cavanasm]

America largely disproves this already. The highest proportion of net recipients of federal government benefits are from poor rural deeply conservative states that form a substantial part of the base of the Republican party, which has made rolling back those benefits a primary goal.

[noxToken]

Never mind that most people who have to use welfare for cash assistance actually hate it, and they would rather earn their own living wages via work. Welfare queens are very few and far in between.

[prawn]

If the remaining voters then don't vote in the interests of those net recipients, where will that lead? A medicated underclass?

[nkohari]

I think it's safe to wait until we can envision a truly post-scarcity society to envision how we might go about destroying it.

[324343245]

> Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system?

Almost certainly. The US was doing fine for most of the 20th century.

Globalism is what has brought wages down. Globalism combines the economies of the richest countries with the economies of the poorest in an attempt to "help" poor countries. As rich countries and poor countries combine economies, they move toward economic-equilibrium, which means the people from the poor country get brought out of poverty at the expense of the people in the rich countries. This is fine for the "1%" on the coasts of the united states, but if you're part of rural America you're getting hit very hard by globalism.

[jstanley]

Globalism isn't an "attempt" to do anything. It's just markets naturally tending towards efficiency.

> but if you're part of rural America you're getting hit very hard by globalism.

i.e. if you're part of rural America, you're being out-competed by superior market participants located in poorer countries.

It's not that unfair. It would be much more unfair to apply protectionist policies to subsidise the rural Americans at the expense of the truly-impoverished people in poorer countries.

[sharemywin]

completely disagree. Why is china expanding faster than most "democratic" countries. India is focused on technology which should be easier to outsource yet, Knowledge workers are doing fine in the US. It's because china is coordinates its activity like a giant company, in my opinion, to exploit markets. investing heavily in infrastructure, stealing trade secrets, destroying the environment, exploiting children and criminals, manipulating currency for decades. I could go on but you get the point

[ashark]

> It's because china is coordinates its activity like a giant company, in my opinion, to exploit markets.

Same thing Japan did after WWII. Works great if you can pull it off.

[rpiguy]

Japan didn't just "do it." The US allowed it and encouraged it. The US wanted a strong, capitalist ally in the region to counter Communism and Japan fit the bill. The US willfully ignored Japan's protectionism while allowing them high levels of access to our markets.

For example, the end of Kodak began when Fuji film infringed on their patents and the US government did nothing, still allowing Fuji to sell their film in the US.

You can look at that in two ways. The government broke up a near monopoly on print film that Kodak had, created competition and lowered prices for consumers. But ultimately it started an employer of 200K people on the path toward extinction. Yes it would have been eclipsed by digital anyway, but wouldn't it have been nice if those 200K people had their jobs a little longer?

I am personally torn on issues like this. I see the benefit of competition and globalization, but also the cost to local economies and industries.

[jameshart]

The idea that globalism is an attempt to 'help' poor countries needs evidence to support it - I think there are plenty of ways in which globalism has benefitted wealthy countries at the expense of poor ones. In fact, the idea that globalism is 'an attempt' to do something, i.e. a conscious agenda to change the world, rather than just something which just emerged out of commercial activity, also seems a bit of a leap.

[ptaipale]

I think that we can once again be reminded that there is only one thing that is worse for poor nations than being exploited by global capitalism.

It's that poor nations are not exploited by global capitalism.

Then you can look up TED talks by Hans Rosling, and the follow-up reports for UN millennium development goals.

[jameshart]

right - there have been massive improvements in poverty in developing countries as a result of globalization. But that doesn't mean that Rosling-style improvements in life outcomes for people in the poorest nations were a goal of globalization; just a side effect. And benefits have accrued to wealthy nations too - cheap gas, cheap electronic devices, expanding investment markets. If policy supporting globalization had a goal it was probably more driven by those outcomes.

[ptaipale]

The unpleasant, unintended side effects of many "good" policies often surprise activists: protectionism and orthodox equality leads to decreased trade and removes incentives to increase productivity. This is a surprise to many people who then try to deny the existence of these side effects because they think they are only advocating "good" policies so the bad results are someone else's fault.

The pleasant, unintended side effects of globalist capitalism and economic liberalism are in fact not that much a surprise. Just look at the track record. Is it bad if good outcomes follow as unintended consequences?

Arbor ex fructu cognoscitur.

[Karellen]

Can you give a few examples of poor nations that are not being exploited by global capitalism?

[ptaipale]

Zimbabwe, North Korea. And of course many poor African nations where global capitalism doesn't operate that much and which are therefore largely in a subsistence economy.

Venezuela wasn't a poor nation to start with, but is becoming one in its urge to fight global capitalism.

[maxerickson]

North Korea and Cuba have been pretty well isolated from capitalism.

You could also look at countries in Africa that don't have extensive resource extraction (compared to those that do).

[SimbaOnSteroids]

As an asside North Korea does ship workers abroad to work as slave laborers.

[flerchin]

Zimbabwe, Venezuela, North Korea.

[raverbashing]

India and China beg to differ

[fsloth]

The claim that globalization is an attempt to help poorer countries is controversial and would require elaboration.

The stereotypical example of a global economic pattern is a t shirt factory providing goods for a western brand that operates in a third world country because the economic equilibrium is such that raw material acquisition, labor and transport to market costs in total are lower than if the factory was situated for example next to the brand owners head office. I don't see where a will to help someone steps in there.

[wcummings]

Globalism doesn't "attempt" anything, its not designed and it doesn't have agency.

[sharemywin]

I don't 100% agree with that. doesn't have agency true. not designed not so sure. There are plenty of treaties and other contracts between countries that effect how money etc. flows to countries. world bank and others.

[wcummings]

Globalization is happening with or without those policies, though. Even if you don't like it, it's an unhappy reality.

[rpiguy]

You are correct, globalism is in fact designed and it is not inevitable. While as a broad concept it may lack agency, it certainly is driven by financial interests, and I am happy to assign the "agency" to them.

[ricw]

Whilst your point is true, you're wrong in thinking it is a zero sum game. It certainly isn't. In stark contrast to the USA, it has largely been a win-win situation in Europe for blue collar workers.

What has been devastating for the mid-west is that the exporting of jobs was politically and financially supported. Companies would receive subsidies to "globalise".

[arethuza]

Part of the UK have been very badly hit by globalism - which arguably was one of the major factors in the Brexit vote. Similarly, the support for National Front in France was, as far as I understand it, largely in areas where there have been steep downturns in traditional industries.

Edit: I was a Remain voter - but I can completely why so many people were angry and wanted a protest vote. Just that I don't think the EU really caused many of the problems people were complaining about so that coming out of the EU is unlikely to actually resolve this issues.

[simion314]

So if you force Apple to make iPhone in USA with USA workers and materials then you know the other countries would also do the same and will not buy the iPones or but a huge tax on them, then you get less iPhones made so in the end you don't get that many wrokers/materials used. For Apple case it may be possible that much more money are extracted from non US countries then put from US in those countries, problem is where the profit is spent.

[sharemywin]

If it were 100% globalism than why is tech so concentrated?

[jasonlfunk]

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.)

[kristofferR]

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.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Lis...

[unityByFreedom]

> 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.

[sqeaky]

> Why would the parties vote for solutions that would destroy the duopoly they currently enjoy?

One can a imagine a situation where Democrats think the change will be safe for them and Republicans will be cast into chaos and in that same situation Republicans think they will be safe and Democrats will be cast into chaos.

[phkahler]

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. These issues will not be addressed by the people in power though because they are part of the structures that need to be eliminated.

[unityByFreedom]

> 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 anyone outside the state a person is running in.

I think rolling back Citizens United, which allowed corporations to donate unlimited amounts to candidates' [unaffiliated] campaigns, would be a big practical step in this direction.

[alistairSH]

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.

[unityByFreedom]

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

[alistairSH]

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.

[ethbro]

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?

[naasking]

> 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.

[bitwize]

Citizens United wasn't about campaign donations. It was about whether a corporation had the right to broadcast its own material endorsing or denouncing one or the other political candidate within a certain time window of an election.

[naasking]

> 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.

[unityByFreedom]

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.

[walshemj]

Yeh right no offence but face to face debate does not work very well over teleconferences you need to have everyone in the room.

Having a president having to do PMQ's and maintaining the confidence of the house and senate might be a good thing.

[naasking]

I don't know know if you've ever watched C-SPAN, but in person debate already doesn't work. In fact, the wisdom of the crowds effect works best when each actor in the crowd makes up their own mind without the influence of external actors.

[walshemj]

Well the US house and senate are some what unreformed 18th century institutions one senator /congress man commented that the house of lords was more democratic - the is pre removal of most of the hereditary pears.

[votepaunchy]

You can't just "roll back" Citizens United other than amending the Constitution or having a future Supreme Court overturn the ruling.

[wastedhours]

The current US party system might be destructive, but am a believer in party politics - mainly because without it, to get anything done would take the form of voting blocs which can lead down the path to more backroom "scratch my back" deals.

[sqeaky]

Isn't "backroom deals" just a negative way to describe cooperation and collaboration? If not please explain it to me and pretend I am really dumb on this topic, because I am.

[lordnacho]

It's a big piece of it, seemingly.

The US has an interesting constitution:

- First past the post. Such systems tend to favour fewer parties. The UK (also FPTP) barely has more than two parties. In most of continental western europe, there's considerably more, due to proportional representation. On the continent you end up having a bunch of different opinions, and you don't have to squish every issue onto a liberal/conservative axis. For instance you get socially conservative big state parties. Or socially liberal big state parties. Or socially liberal small state. And there's other axes too.

- A separate executive. In the UK even though they have FPTP, they have a government formed by the leader of one of the parties, and they "whip" the MPs to vote according to the party line, subject to various forms of sanction depending on how important an issue is. In the US, you choose two legislatures and a separate president. If they're not in agreement, it de facto entrenches the existing status quo by making it hard to change the law.

[joveian]

I think the seperate executive could be more a strength than a weakness in that it could allow a congressional system where stable coalitions are unnecessary and different issues could result in different coalitions. Possibly this happens more than I would think in systems that require coalitions, but it seems to me like not needing them would be more likely to change the simplistic us vs them narrative.

The other issue is which system to change to. There doesn't seem to be a single ideal system. IMO, in terms of the voting itself, ability to resolve an election in one ballot, limiting the usefulness of strategic voting, and getting at least close to a Condorcet winner would be the most useful properties.

I recently started to try to put together something based on five value range voting but I'm not sure it is even possible to derive a system from that which has the above properties. I haven't found any existing methods that seem to fit the above properties well, although some are much closer than others. Another option, easier in a lot of ways but more expensive, would be two ballot elections.

There is also the structural part. IMO, a parallel system has more appeal than mixed member proprotional, but it has some significant disadvantages as well. Anytime a significant change is proposed there will be strategic maneuvering for a system that benefits particular interests.

As someone else mentioned, states need to change first. The west coast in general would be a great place for that and I think Oregon may be taking the lead in political disfunction at this point (well, on the west coast at least, even though California is very innovative in that area)...

[usmeteora]

"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.

[jhbadger]

There's nothing in the Constitution about political parties, two or otherwise. In fact, the initial idea at the time was that the US wasn't going to have political parties and that voters would focus on individuals instead.

[tom_mellior]

Whether or not the Constitution says anything about political parties, it establishes a "winner takes it all" voting system that has the effect described above. The Republican party should long ago have split into a loony Tea Party fraction and a conservative fraction, and half of the Democrats would politically be more at home in the Green party.

But these things are not realistic with a first-past-the-post system, so there are two large, internally divided, dysfunctional parties that "represent" a lot of people whose voices are ultimately not heard and whose interests are not represented by anyone.

[stult]

The parent comment was referring to mathematical properties of the voting system itself which tend to give rise to a two party system almost automatically (specifically, the combination of a first past the post voting system and single-representative districts)[1]. The Founders were not aware of these effects and could not compensate for them, so their vision of a party-free democracy did not prove relevant to how the system actually functions in practice.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

[PeterisP]

Given the "rules of the game" set in US Constitution, a two-party system is a natural outcome, all other situations and fluctuations converge back to that - as shown both by game theory and practical historical evidence. Intent doesn't matter here - if you want different systemic outcomes, you have to change the rules.

[unityByFreedom]

> 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.

Disagreement is a human condition, not a democratic one. Democracy is just a way to let some ideas win some of the time.

There isn't a system in the world that's freed people from disagreement. Humans like disagreement. We want to be creative, original, and unique at times. That requires setting your own path.

[yorwba]

Disagreement != divisiveness.

E.g. I disagree with you on that point, but I'm not using my hypothetical army of sock puppets to downvote every single of your comments into oblivion from now to eternity. Sometimes, US politics feels more like the latter.

[unityByFreedom]

You're splitting hairs. They're related terms

I have no control over an army. I just have me and my own opinion

[xg15]

Not a US citizen, but my understanding is that the two-party system is not mandated by the constitution, or even encouraged. It's something that developed on top of it, as a consequence of some bad rules (first-past-the-post as you say) but also other factors (campaign financing)

Because the beneficiaries of the system get to make the rules, there is also a push to change regulations more and more to favor the two-party system.

There are other parties (e.g. greens) it just doesn't make any practical sense to vote for them.

[kristofferR]

Your first and your last sentence contradicts each other, in my view. The reason why it doesn't make sense to vote for the greens is the system laid out in the constitution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

[adrianN]

I agree that first past the post is stupid, but the strong divide between Repulicans and Democrats seems to be fairly recent.[1] They used to vote less along party lines. So maybe the rise of mass media is to blame?

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

[rbanffy]

At some point someone discovered that reporting on a fictional version of reality that confirms the audience's biases was more profitable than reporting on actual facts.

[MichaelBurge]

> it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness.

It doesn't have anything about parties in it at all, and leaves it up to the states to decide how to choose their electors. If California or any other state wanted a different system, it could decide to use ranked choice voting right now just like Maine chose last election.

[lyschoening]

That could make a difference in the House, but not in the Senate.

[mcv]

I think it could be reasonable to have system where the House represents the people (making proportional representation necessary) while the Senate represents the states. As long as the role of the Senate is sufficiently limited and not the core of the legislative process, that could be very reasonable. But it's vital that the people are more important than the states.

For example, the House could decide on the laws, with the Senate only deciding whether this is an issue that belongs on the federal level at all. And maybe double checking whether the law is constitutional and in line with existing treaties.

If they do the same thing, it makes no sense to have them both.

[jacobush]

Still, pretty nice though?

[jstewartmobile]

Our problem is the rural/urban split, and how the rural areas have a much more powerful per-person sway over policy and election outcomes.

Two senators per state is pretty kick-ass if you live in North Dakota.

[wtbob]

Our problem is the cities, and how they have many more people. Representation in proportion to population is pretty kick-ass if you live in New York.

It's a little less kick-ass if you live in North Dakota, and wonder why a few coastal congressmen are able to pass laws which interfere with your lifestyle.

More seriously, our problem is a metastasised federal government. Very little should actually be a federal issue (read the enumerated powers of the United States in the Constitution!), and yet almost everything now is. As a result, every issue becomes winner-take-all: the entire country must comply with me, or the entire country must comply with you. There's no room to allow Massachusetts to go wrong and right in its ways, and to allow North Dakota to go wrong and right in its ways.

[unityByFreedom]

> Very little should actually be a federal issue (read the enumerated powers of the United States in the Constitution!), and yet almost everything now is. As a result, every issue becomes winner-take-all: the entire country must comply with me, or the entire country must comply with you. There's no room to allow Massachusetts to go wrong and right in its ways, and to allow North Dakota to go wrong and right in its ways

Saying everything is this way is too much. More like, a few issues such as gay rights and abortion pissed off enough church-going folk to the point they began to rally against federal government overreach.

There are plenty of other things that are managed by states. You don't hear about many differences between state and federal because they aren't contentious. States and the fed are happy with plenty of state laws.

[jstewartmobile]

I wasn't really trying to get into the whole liberal/conservative/size-of-government debate.

My experience with most rural towns is that it's like entering a time machine to 1985. When those places set the agenda, we are going to be "behind" when it comes to the metrics economists use (regardless of how relevant or misleading those metrics may be).

When it comes to letting places go their own way (like sanctuary cities, medical marijuana, gay marriage, etc.), I totally agree with you!

[gnaritas]

> It's a little less kick-ass if you live in North Dakota, and wonder why a few coastal congressmen are able to pass laws which interfere with your lifestyle.

And which laws would those be? I'm curious because the fact is a vote in North Dakota is worth several votes in New York so you're already getting far more power than you deserve in any fair system and the only issues that tend to go federal are issues of civil rights which affects the lifestyle of the oppressed, it isn't oppressing you or anyone else in North Dakota.

[pjc50]

Don't forget the racism. Some of the weird structural elements date from the "three-fifths compromise", like the electoral college.

[adamnemecek]

There's also a cultural aspect. E.g. Note how people in the us don't protest much, much to their detriment.

[bcook]

Aren't there better ways than protesting to affect change?

[adamnemecek]

There actually aren't. Not as immediate and direct. Occupy Wall Street made a lot of people in power really uncomfortable. Also see the recent president Park protests in South Korea.

[vacri]

> The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution

The US is not the first democracy or democracy-style entity. The US constitution was certainly something interesting and with new stuff for its day, but democracies had been around in various forms for a while. But yes, a large part of the problem in US politics is the inevitable two-parties, which engenders a 'with us or against us' mindset. I wouldn't lay the blame for 'most of the problems' on that, but it seems to be significant.

[JediWing]

> The first version of something is rarely the best version

Second, actually

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

As another comment mentioned, it's arguably greater if you include subsequent amendments.

The US Constitution has its share of flaws, but it ignores quite a bit to call it a first version.

[TorKlingberg]

It's not something we like to hear, but I think most people prefer to keep first past the post elections. The U.K. had a referendum to change it and 68% voted "no".

[pmorici]

Two party system isn't in the constitution. If you go back and look at us history politics have always had periods that look nutty and disfunctional.

[9090local]

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!

[mac01021]

Who is not following the rules of the law?

Which rules?

[vowelless]

I generally agree with your point but it is worth pointing out that almost any democratic system will have flaws which can lead to unexpected results. See Arrows impossibility theorem.

[arethuza]

The UK seems to having similar problems - so I don't think it is related to the specifics of the constitution/democratic system.

[kristofferR]

The UK also has first-past-the-post though.

[s_kilk]

And what's the common denominator?

Neoliberal Capitalism.

[arethuza]

Indeed, and a slavish adherence to Neoliberal Capitalism as the ideological answer to all questions.

[DarkKomunalec]

But the UK also has a first past the post system.

[vorotato]

Ah but you're assuming that the problem is not enough wealth when actually America is incredibly wealthy. The problem isn't the democratic system, it's income inequality.

[kristofferR]

How did I even imply that the problem is the America doesn't have enough wealth? My comment didn't touch on anything of the sort.

My point was actually this: In a better democracy the people who believed income inequality was a big problem would vote for the "Bernie Sanders Party" instead of being forced to vote for Clinton. Let's say that just 20% voted for the BSP while 31% voted for the Hillary Party.

They would be forced to govern together, and create the best solutions in order to retain or grow their parties. The constantly changing dynamic between all the different parties would in turn lead to better solutions for the voters instead of the current solution in the US - where people on the left are practically forced to vote democratic and the people on the right are forced to vote republican, no matter the job performance.

Since the US forces people into camps based on ideology instead of the delivered results, the results suffer while the ideological conflict is enhanced.

[H4CK3RM4N]

I feel like this is a more general symptom of attempting to apply a democracy where every citizen's is valued equally in a very large population. At some point, it's simply impossible to have a whole population which is both properly educated and able to voice it's opinion. This line of reasoning is a large part of the reason that Rousseau suggested that societies would be best served by an educated aristocracy[1].

America has an aristocracy emerging in it's political/business class, but it still attempts to have every voice heard in elections, and as a result you'll always have people who feel hardly done by attempting to rebel against the status quo.

I'm also going go take the opportunity to share CGP Grey's videos on First Past the Post voting[2] and the electoral college[3], and the issues with those. He also has videos directly the electoral college, without his opinions, if you need some background[4].

[1]http://www.bartleby.com/168/305.html

[2]http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-problems-with-first-past-the...

[3]http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/the-trouble-with-the-electoral-c...

[4]http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/how-the-electoral-college-works....

[unityByFreedom]

> At some point, it's simply impossible to have a whole population which is both properly educated and able to voice it's opinion

Are, it's impossible to have that at all points. The point is to strive for it, not achieve perfection.

If we don't strive, then with people like DeVos in charge of federal funding, public schools will be gutted and the problem worsens.

[makosdv]

The vast majority of education funding comes from the states, so cutting federal funding won't really have much impact.

"That means the Federal contribution to elementary and secondary education is about 8 percent" - https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html

It really makes me wonder what we need the Department of Education for...

[unityByFreedom]

> It really makes me wonder what we need the Department of Education for...

According to DeVos, we need it to undermine public schooling by directing tax money to private schools.

[xg15]

> societies would be best served by an educated aristocracy

And what goals and principles would that aristorcracy govern by? Who is deciding about the goals and who makes sure they are actually enacted?

What if said leaders decide that, in order to combat overpopulation, parts of the "surplus class" need to be removed?

The reason many people migrated to the US centuries ago was to get away from aristorcracy. So how do you avoid repeating the problems?

[H4CK3RM4N]

How do you propose ensuring a democracy doesn't fail? In the first passage I linked, hereditary aristocracy is referred to as "the worst of all governments", it suggests that "the wisest should govern the many", and Rousseau even acknowledges that aristtocracy "demands others which are peculiar to itself; for instance, moderation on the side of the rich and contentment on that of the poor".

[xg15]

But representative democracies - the wide majority of current-day democracies - absolutely follow "the wisest should govern the many": Most things are not decided by general elections but by specialists. Only the questions of what exactly constitutes a specialist and what the goal of their work should be are resolved via elections. (At least that's the theory)

[Kaizyn]

First of all, it is a republic and not a democracy. The difference is quite important. Secondly, to attribute the problems to the constitution is mistaken. That founding document is the only thing standing in the way of a complete and total disaster for the country.

Nearly all the problems can be traced back to where politicians are ignoring the constitution in part or in full and thereby eroding the public protections built into the republic.

[eevilspock]

Taxonomies are not always mutually exclusive.

The other answers remind me of my son as a toddler: FURIOUS as he explained: "It is NOT green. It is ROUND!!"

"It is not a democracy, it is a republic" is every bit as mistaken.

Read the rest at: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-differences-between-a-dem...

[Brakenshire]

On the other hand, the US has a legalistic style of politics which you could blame on people relying too much on the constitution. The US is like an oppositional court room, with each side tearing at each other to get as much benefit as they can. It does diminish the shared duty to do what is right and good for the country and the democracy.

Although of course the US is also a relatively fractured country by its nature, so perhaps can't rely on a vague, shared sense of what is good and decent, in the same way as a small European country, with more or less a common ethnic and cultural identity.

[Kaizyn]

The purpose of the constitution is to protect the public from the tyranny of the government. And within the public, to protect the minorities from the majority.

[gnaritas]

> First of all, it is a republic and not a democracy.

That's like saying it's a dog not an animal; our republic is also a democracy, they are not mutually exclusive terms so please stop saying this nonsense.

[Kaizyn]

No, we have a republic. Fundamentally different animal.

In a democracy, the public could vote to do something that would be considered wrong such as stripping voting rights from everyone who likes country music. And with majority rule, that would pass and become law of the land.

In a republic like ours, the constitution governs what can and cannot be enacted by the majority. Since such an act would take away guaranteed minority rights, the constitution prevents the majority from doing something like that.

[gnaritas]

> No, we have a republic. Fundamentally different animal.

No it's not, and it's really sad and tiring such a simple concept escapes so many people. Please take a course in government and learn the difference between these things you're conflating. Republics don't have to have constitutions and constitutional governments aren't necessarily republics. Republics can be democracies or not, ours is, not all are.

Our minority rights are protected because we're a constitutional government who has protections for those things; that has nothing to do with our being a republic.

[Pulcinella]

First of all, a republic is a type of democracy...

[gnaritas]

No, ours is, but not all republics are democracies. Republic just means we don't have a monarchy and leaders are chosen by some other means. It doesn't mean that means is a democracy.

[Kaizyn]

No, it's a republic because it has a constitution that sets out the rules for what the government is and is not allowed to do. Democracies give the people absolute rule, whereas the constitution denies a majority from enacting certain laws that violate the constitution.

[gnaritas]

Having a constitution just makes a country "constitutional", it doesn't make it a republic. You're conflating being constitutional with being a republic, they are different things; we are both of those things, but they are unrelated things. We are a republic because we don't have a monarchy, that's all it means. Our minority rights are protected because we're a constitutional government who has protections for those things; that has nothing to do with our being a republic.