[maria_weber23]

That would be a death sentence for the current administration. It's always the same game. Whoever is in power does EVERYTHING imaginable to make themselves look good and unload all the fallout into the next term(s), which is often held by the opposing party, and if not, the game of deferring will simply continue... Until at some point it simply can't and we get a big bang.

Why are people still thinking that taxing high earners is an option? The world is ruled by rich people, why would they tax themselves? Doesn't make any sense. Democracy is nice, until all the choices you have, exhibit the same underlying core values that you disagree with.

Normally all successful parties will aim for the middle, where there are most voters. The ones that don't, are marginalized and perhaps have some chance at succeeding during times where voters go astray and just vote some extremists out of sheer frustration (like it happened in Germany a couple of times). But that never lasts. This seriously limits democracy, as you can be sure that some values will never change, because there is no party with enough votes to make these changes.

Instead, what we need is Democracy 2.0, where the people vote on individual packages, not parties. Switzerland may be the only country where that works out quite well.

[leetcrew]

> Why are people still thinking that taxing high earners is an option? The world is ruled by rich people, why would they tax themselves? Doesn't make any sense. Democracy is nice, until all the choices you have, exhibit the same underlying core values that you disagree with.

for the most part, "high earners" are not rich people; they are the upper-middle class. the richest people make the vast majority of their income from investment returns, and are often able to avoid having it count as "income". the very rich are quite happy to have taxes increased on high salaries in exchange for maintaining the status quo re investments.

> Instead, what we need is Democracy 2.0, where the people vote on individual packages, not parties. Switzerland may be the only country where that works out quite well.

this much I can agree on. why do I have to choose between guns and abortion?

[soared]

My counterpoint to Democracy 2.0 is dead simple: If we could buy a car that was $2,000 cheaper (but had no seatbelts), many Americans would.

Humans are bad at some things. Understanding complicated situations where they aren't experts is one of them - Statistics, safety, complicated systems, etc.

Also, reddit is in many ways democracy 2.0 and they upvote literal fake news all the time.

[denimnerd42]

you can, it's called a 3 wheeled motorcycle.

[altdatathrow]

Information overload leads to people seeking succinct information and answers. The upvote/downvote systems ubiquitous today are easily manipulated to spread misinformation, propaganda, and fake news.

We need to do away with upvotes and downvotes. It’s manipulated everywhere it exists.

[falcolas]

It won’t happen. And the reason is: It outsources community curation. A couple of moderators can manage millions of posts, because they only need to pay attention to the outliers. It also allows the moderators to easily fall back on “it’s what the community wants” when the core values change.

[SpicyLemonZest]

And even when not explicitly manipulated, the wrongness is baked into the system. At least once a week, I catch myself rewriting a comment not to improve it but to increase my chances of getting upvotes. How many claims do I make, how many positions do I believe, simply because I know somewhere in my subconscious that they'll get upvotes?

[imglorp]

> vote on individual packages

On that note, Congress has had a rider problem forever. It's unconscionable how legislation get clumped together to a) force a vote on some generally positive thing while b) avoiding accountability and c) sneaking all kinds of evil opposites into the same package.

[Retric]

America fairly recently actually taxed high income earners and companies, so politically it’s very possible. Increasing the AMT by say 5% while raising the minimum threshold to say 500k would have vast popular support and a huge backlash from rich people. Determine who wins that fight is just another political battle.

[vmception]

but politicians play a game of semantics to accomplish nothing and appease their base

in tax contexts, "income" means about 3 different things, but to angry people it means one thing: "everything you earn that year"

the reality is that "income" is a subset of earning types, and the rich people anyone actually cares about do not earn much "income" and are therefore continually exempted from the populist fury

taxing high income earners just hurts the upper middle class and business owners

it is entertaining but disheartening to see so much energy put toward the same result over and over

[jokethrowaway]

If the majority of your earnings are income, you're likely nowhere close to the rich people that influence politicians

[orthecreedence]

> what we need is Democracy 2.0

Or STV, approval, STAR, etc etc literally ANY kind of voting system besides FPTP.

[jokethrowaway]

Democracy is still majority rules, which means a huge part of the consumers of government are still forced to accept conditions they don't like. There is also that mafia bit about having to give away part of your earnings or you go to jail.

We need to decentralise the system so that fewer majority votes are needed (ideally, zero) and politicians hold less power (ideally, zero).

Most state functions can be privatised trivially. Some are more complicated but it doesn't seem like we're moving in this direction at all.

Every year the government spends more of the money stolen from taxpayers and keeps getting bigger and more powerful (and probably more corrupt).

[turbinerneiter]

Can you give me an example for a privatised service that is doing better than the public one?

Because I only have negative examples, where after privatization prizes went up and quality went down.

[alentist]

Read up on SELTIC (the Service, Efficiency, and Lower Taxes for Indianapolis Commission) and how their privatization initiatives dramatically improved Indianapolis.

https://bg.hbr.org/1997/05/can-business-really-do-business-w...

https://www.govtech.com/magazines/gt/Indianapolis-Mayor-Step...

https://fcpp.org/2018/05/04/the-indianapolis-champ/

[jokethrowaway]

Private health care in Europe.

The cost of public health care is staggering and the quality is abysmal. If you can afford it, if you have something serious and you don't want to wait for ages or get poor equipment or lack of testing, you'll go private even in Europe.

I'd say private health care in the states is very successful as well (high quality and research) but the prices are ridiculously inflated because of government / insurances.

[germinalphrase]

It’s an article of economic faith that private parties will always, by definition, provide superior outcomes with reduced costs.

[alentist]

It’s an article of economic faith that government parties will always, by definition, provide superior outcomes with reduced costs.

[germinalphrase]

I have never encountered your position in the wild.

[alentist]

I highly doubt that.

[d1zzy]

I grew up in a communist country, everything was state owned, everything was crappy (I mean quality wise) and generally out of stock but hey, it had amazing price (dictated by the state of course), theoretically anyone could afford it. That resulted in huge lines waiting for small stock drops (not unlike the new PC hardware situation with scalpers these days, which is funny) of chicken, electronics, bananas. Of course, it was even better if you knew someone working at those stores, then you'd get a heads up or they'd "reserve" some for you.

So in general I'd say I've seen government fail to run plenty of businesses. A more modern example would be PG&E which is in this weird situation where it's so regulated that it's almost government run but it's technically a private entity. There are also plenty of pure private entities that haven't run well (but at least, such entities end up being bankrupt, a healthy alternative for non-profitable private businesses).

So in my experience, seeing both private and publicly run companies fail, I've started to think that this aspect of it (being privately or publicly controlled) is not what makes the company run well but it's one of the many factors that can contribute to it. I think a more important factor are the interests, skills, will and agenda of those that control it, regardless of whom they answer to (voters or board).

And let's not discard the particularities of each business. Some enjoy a natural monopoly, others face tough competition. These are more important aspects contributing to efficient use of resources than, again, who the CEO answers to.

[joejerryronnie]

I’ve read about this form of government in Snow Crash. High speed pizza delivery seems to be a good investment.

[nine_zeros]

> Instead, what we need is Democracy 2.0, where the people vote on individual packages, not parties. Switzerland may be the only country where that works out quite well.

This is hard and inefficient in a large country with an underlying population that lacks critical thinking.

We could instead use a multi-party system where multiple voices are raised in the house and senate votes.

[jfengel]

The voices actually are raised, in the hearings. You can watch some of them on C-SPAN. The floor of a chamber with 100 or 435 members isn't really suited for debate, but it does happen. The vote is the very tail end of a long deliberative process.

Most people only look at that tail end because the deliberation is dull, but if you want to know what it looks like, much of it is available to the public.

[jlokier]

And yet on some of the big headline issues, those tail-end votes are split almost perfectly 50:50 along party lines.

Which leads people to think, correctly, that independent-minded critical thinking is not determining those votes.

[jfengel]

It's not the vote, which is binary, but what they're voting on. It takes an enormous amount of effort to shape the language. The details matter.

[nine_zeros]

By raising voice, I mean actually voting as their base asks to. Not gonna happen in a two party system where their careers are at stake.

[jfengel]

The base asks via their votes. If they re-elect the legislator, the legislator will continue to vote the same way.

Most legislators have high approval ratings among their constituents, and practically unanimous among their party in their district. It's always other people's legislators who are the problem.

[nine_zeros]

> The base asks via their votes. If they re-elect the legislator, the legislator will continue to vote the same way.

No. People are left voting for their representatives from a set of 2. With this, most people vote for one because they hate the other and not because they like their policies.

In terms of representative democracy, American two party system is just infantile.

[wutbrodo]

> what we need is Democracy 2.0, where the people vote on individual packages, not parties. Switzerland may be the only country where that works out quite well.

This works terribly in CA, FYI.

I don't think there are any easy solutions to the political equilibrium we're in.

[joejerryronnie]

Are you referring to the ballot initiative process in CA? If so, what do you think doesn’t work?

[jfim]

Some of the ballot initiatives have had deleterious effects on California.

Proposition 13 putting a yearly property tax increase cap means that people who have owned property for a long time are basically not paying their fair share of local taxes. That tax advantage can be passed from generation to generation. It also has the perverse incentive to encourage cities to increase commercial and industrial zoning over residential zoning, with the effects on property prices one can see today.

Proposition 47 meant that many crimes under a 950$ threshold were considered misdemeanors instead of felonies. This is one likely factor for the large increase in the amount of car break-ins and shoplifting in some areas, such as San Francisco.

[sjg007]

Growing income inequality will lead to authoritarianism and then eventual revolution. We need a win:win situation and taxing the super rich is usually the best option.