[kennykartman]

The US democracy is quite weird, though, because it's IMHO quite far from the people: billionaires can influence the outcomes of elections by steering the votes where the most paying candidate (or the most knowledgeable, or someone else with other skills) desires. This is not something that people can influence easily, so I find hard to believe that a government is legitimate just by the label on the packaging.

I won't go down the path of "fair elections", since I don't think it applies to USA.

[latency-guy2]

There's a number of people who try and influence elections, money is not nearly as effective as you think it is. Or else a few people that have a few billion in their coffers would run and have won elections in places and other things far more than what they currently do/have done.

The wealthiest entity in the USA is the government itself. It's not even close.

Further, if currency was not able to influence things then that eliminates the main purpose of fiat currency, there is obviously a place for it in any case. Just because you don't like the direction it's being used doesn't mean you have a reasonable position either. Fiat is a benefit to the government in all ways and its in it's best interest to uphold the strength of their currency, not just for the locals to the land in the borders, but if they want to influence the rest of the world.

You should go down the path of "fair elections" because you otherwise lose all points for being vague and imprecise that no one can contest you on because you don't think we are worth the argument.

[kennykartman]

If tomorrow I owned 1 zillion dollar, that wouldn't make me able to change the course of next US (presidential) elections. It's not the only factor, ofc, but it is a very relevant one. Let's consider other factors that might be relevant: influence, visibility, arguments, fame, political weight, political knowledge, time, will. There are others. Someone with no influence on these factors and no money can hardly influence the outcomes of a nation election. If that someone was made a billionaire overnight, it can gain control over some factors, improving the likelihood of their impact over the next elections. Will they succeed? Not necessarily, but that their impact can become perceivable is undeniable.

Fair elections: in the US there are a bunch of practices related to vote that I don't consider fair. First and foremost, how votes are counted. Then, how money can be used to finance parties and campaigns. Gerrymandering is another one.

[smsm42]

Billionaires can do this in any country. In US, the difference is other billionaires than the rulers of the country are allowed to exist.

[kennykartman]

I think this is not true. Russia and China come to mind: billionaires are there, but they are not allowed to subvert the regime.

Edit just to clarify: presence of billionaires that are not hostile to the regime does not mean they are allies either.

[smsm42]

Billionaires there are subjects to the regime, and only remain billionaires while they are absolutely loyal to the regime. And threat of disagreement not only would cause them stop being billionaires, but also stop breathing altogether. I mean, running away could be an option, but then one stops being Russian or Chinese billionaire. And also this may not preclude "stop breathing" option, as some examples show.

[kennykartman]

You're right! Still they are billionaires in their countries with many benefits for being billionaires! Except, steering the government where they want - which typically means getting even richer. In the USA this happened, though.

My point is that, even in self-proclamed democracies, it's quite hard to actually give power to the people, precisely as in regimes. It's not a "it's all the same" position, of course: I mean to say that taking some values as absolute is not great if we don't clearly define what we are optimizing for. The USA model of democracy doesn't optimize for individual freedom nor for general population happiness.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Russia and China come to mind: billionaires are there, but they are not allowed to subvert the regime

Putin and Xi are billionaires. So are their cronies. They get richer faster than the rest of their population because they’re literally billionaires in control of the regime with no peaceful path to removing them.

[kennykartman]

I'm aware of that and I agree. So what? My comment was that they are not the only billionaires.