[FirmwareBurner]

>public servants

I doubt the likes of Ursula, who come form extremely privilege backgrounds and have been groomed since childhood for high ranking leadership positions, see themselves as being any kind of "servants".

The term come from the days when public servants were elected from the general public, but those days are long gone and now we're bickering which members of the wealthy elite do we elect to screw us over for 4+ years without any accountability or repercussions.

[jacquesm]

Well, you got that wrong, especially for her. I know some of these people and in fact they do see themselves holding high office as a public service. Their reasoning is something like this: I'm already wealthy, don't have to work for a living. But I can make myself useful by running for public office or by taking a crappy paycheck (by their standards) for some high level bureaucratic position and so make myself useful. And here are some helpful connections that will help me achieve that goal.

And so they convince themselves that they are not in it for the money but merely for the public good, as wealthy people they are hard to bribe (somewhat true) and better this than loafing around doing nothing all day.

Whether it is the best for society is another matter, but this is a fair representation of some of the people in those circles that I know. They would rather see it as a sacrifice than as them holding power for power's sake because that's not what you're supposed to do.

It's loosely connected to Noblesse Oblige (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noblesse%20oblige ), as in that you should strive to do good deeds and to use your station in life wisely if you are wealthy or in a position of power (but then you first have to obtain a position of power...).

[FirmwareBurner]

>And so they convince themselves that they are not in it for the money but merely for the public good, as wealthy people they are hard to bribe (somewhat true) and better this than loafing around doing nothing all day.

Here's where you blew it. Wealthy people aren't immune to greed. The wealthier you are, the more wealth you wan to amass because that's what everyone else around you is doing.

I doubt Donald Trump got into politics because he got bored of being rich and became soooo interested in helping the common man. Wealthy people go into politics because politics means more power, more connections and networking, and ultimately more wealth.

Also, people born in opulent wealth have no idea of the struggles of the common man you're claiming they want to help. I doubt Ursula knows how much is the price of groceries, gas, electricity, plus the average wage of the common folk.

[jacquesm]

> Here's where you blew it. Wealthy people aren't immune to greed. The wealthier you are, the more wealth you wan to amass because that's what everyone else around you is doing.

No, you didn't get what I wrote, the sentence you quoted starts with 'And so they convince themselves'. Whether it is true or not has no bearing on it.

[barbazoo]

> I doubt the likes of Ursula, who come form extremely privilege backgrounds and have been groomed since childhood for high ranking leadership positions

Not sure that she's the perfect example for what you're trying to say

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

[maxwell]

Are you referring to a particular era when public officials (in Europe?) were elected from the general public or just thinking of halcyon days?

In the U.S., the main issue is that the House has had 435 members since 1929. It's become so obscene that representation was better, on paper, for colonial Americans in the British Parliament than today.

[thmsths]

I keep hearing this, and I think a charitable explanation is that scaling government becomes really hard past a certain point.

I would argue that 435 Representatives is already too much. Humans can only keep track of around 100 people. With so many representatives there is barely enough time for each of them to speak and engage with each other. Increasing the number for "better representation" will just worsen the problem.

A more cynical take is that since they just vote along party lines anyway, the number does not matter too much.

[maxwell]

Are you saying the country has too many people, or that Americans don't deserve representation (population per seat) in line with, say, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, or Australia because it's "really hard" for some reason? Are you advocating for dividing the country into smaller legislative districts?

Remember when we used to do things because they were hard instead of falling back on lazy cynicism and convenience of status quo?

The U.S. seems stuck with the two party system primarily due to the mathematics of the Electoral College and lack of ranked choice voting. These require changes at the state level, not federal.

16 states and DC have now opted out of the Electoral College (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...). RCV is now in place for state-wide elections in Maine and Alaska, but recently banned (seemingly as a partisan protectionist measure) in Florida, Tennessee, South Dakota, Montana, and Idaho.

Gerrymandering and lack of a mixed electoral system also seem major factors for the political duopoly, with less clear solutions to me.

[Wytwwww]

Japan and South Korea are not federations. US already has multiple levels of representation increasing the number on the federal level wouldn't be that useful. The electoral system and gerrymandering seem like much, much bigger issue than the number of people per representative.

[maxwell]

Congress can't do anything about the electoral system or gerrymandering. The only beneficial structural change that Congress could make constitutionally is to repeal the Reapportionment Act of 1929.

I'm not well versed on political subdivisions in Japan or South Korea, but there appear to be prefecture/province level officials that don't sound too far out of line with states. Looks like if the U.S. had the national representation (population per seat) of Japan we would have over 1000 reps, South Korea almost 2000.

[Wytwwww]

> I'm not well versed on political subdivisions in Japan or South Korea, but there appear to be prefecture/province level officials that don't sound too far out of line with states.

There is a huge difference between unitary states and federations. American states have legislatures, constitutions, and nearly unlimited rights to raise taxes. Prefectures in Japan are much closer to counties in the U.S. US states are much close to independent countries than to administrative subdivisions in unitary countries.

> Looks like if the U.S. had the national representation (population per seat) of Japan we would have over 1000 reps, South Korea almost 2000.

On the other hand it's about on par with the EU parliament. What would the advantages of significantly increasing the number of representatives be? Most individual matters should be addressed to state officials anyway.

[thmsths]

Thank you for your last point. That's my hunch too. I am more worried about unfair representation than "diluted representation".

[thmsths]

I am certainly not saying Americans don't deserve representation. I am saying that when you're governing 330M people it becomes almost impossible to have proper representation. What good is it to add more Reps? So people can have easier access to their Reps? Good, except if the Reps are now drowned in the noise of all the other Reps you haven't really increased representation. As you hinted the solution might be some new layer of abstraction, but that's not a silver bullet since people tend to focus on national politics above all. I am not denying progress is being made (and we should strive to keep it that way).

[maxwell]

Hands waving, no points made, got it.

[toyg]

But party lines are set by leaders who are themselves representatives. If they had to interface with fewer constituents, they'd engage with them in a different way, probably listening more; having higher and higher numbers of constituents to care for inevitably shifts representatives into "cattle-herding" territory, setting them further apart than they already are.

Also, the more constituents, the more difficult it is for third-party candidates to run and meaningfully affect the debate.

In the end, continent-sized superpower government is really hard. Even in the "good old days", you often ended up with people like Nixon.

[thmsths]

I appreciate your point about the cattle herding. But if we were to increase the numbers of Reps to stay in line with population growth we would need close to 1200 of them. Which in my opinion introduces more issues than it solves.

[maxwell]

What issues?

[Aerroon]

On the other hand, you could say that 435 is too few, because they represent a lot more voters these days than they used to. Can they represent them without being able to hear them out?

In 1900 Congress had 357 representatives for a population of 76 million.

Today Congress has 435 representatives for a population of 331 million.

[Aerroon]

Ursula von der Leyen isn't elected anyway, she's appointed.