Should economics be decided undemocratically?

I know the idea of democracy is to give the people a voice, but honestly, fuck the people and their voice.

Yea I know that sounds like a juvenile thing to say, but I am just so fucking sick of how totally ignorant the everyday person is about economics. I am not even talking about the traditional left vs right economics debate here, just plain ignorance in general in most people regardless of political opinion. Most people's economics views basically just boil down to voting whomever promises the most benefit/reward in return for nothing which results in increased spending or lower taxes without any concern for if it actually works or makes sense in the long term. It's all just pure populism and most people are too stupid to notice or care. I am starting to seriously lean towards the idea that democracy should only cover social issues which are more abstract and subjective, while economic issues should be put into the hand of unelected technocrats.

Do you agree or disagree that democracy fails to build a logical economic policy?

Democracy is essentially mob rule. Also, when everyone has a voice, very little actually gets done.

A democratic republic, however, at least attempts to pretend to be working in the best interests of the people.

Perhaps you should try reading Plato's Republic?

On the other hand, Karl Marx's Das Kapital does bring up a number of points in favor of democracy.

The novel Starship Troopers also has another idea for how governments should operate.

Personally, I think the USA has reached maximum "Tard", and it's probably just a matter of time before Hillary Clinton gets elected president, despite being totally unqualified for the job. I'm guessing that after Bush 2 and Obama, most people figure that any dumb retard can be the President of the USA.

Also, "democracy" is not a form of economics... it is a political system.

Why do you say "should"? It's already the case.

The fact that the economy escapes public oversight entirely, because "people are dumb" and so instead these matters should be decided exclusively by "unelected technocrats" is precisely why the economy is so bad. We get dogmatic shitheads who keep applying the same failed policies, and they are never booted out of office because they are safe from outside scrutiny. A politician that mismanages gets voted out; these guys don't.

Gez said:

Why do you say "should"? It's already the case.

The fact that the economy escapes public oversight entirely, because "people are dumb" and so instead these matters should be decided exclusively by "unelected technocrats" is precisely why the economy is so bad. We get dogmatic shitheads who keep applying the same failed policies, and they are never booted out of office because they are safe from outside scrutiny. A politician that mismanages gets voted out; these guys don't.

I don't think you know what "too big to fail" means, Gez.

It means that when corporations make a number of economic mistakes, spanning decades, and they run the risk of going out of business, the government is supposed to reward them with bailouts!

That is how we do things in Obama's USA! :)

Economics 101

edit: And of course history is repeating itself, because nothing was learned the last time everyone fucked up.

I'd be more in favour of appointing nonpartisan technocrats as our supreme economic overlords if they were actually less fallible than the rest of us. Economics is far from a settled problem, and when I hear economists prescribing solutions they often gloss over complexities and have drastically different priorities than the average person. "We need to stop making workers artificially expensive with a minimum wage." Etc.

hardcore_gamer said:

I know the idea of democracy is to give the people a voice

Errrrrrmn... actually... it doesn't that idea.

The main idea of democracy is "have as many morons in your bag as possible whatever what it costs for you and other".

But wait... oh, no, that's capitalism... same sh*t, honestly.

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frithiof said:

Personally, I think the USA has reached maximum "Tard", and it's probably just a matter of time before Hillary Clinton gets elected president, despite being totally unqualified for the job. I'm guessing that after Bush 2 and Obama, most people figure that any dumb retard can be the President of the USA.

Also, "democracy" is not a form of economics... it is a political system.

I saw a dog as mayor of some little city... pretty comfortable and very disappointing because of craziness of modern "System", isn't it?

CWolfRu said:

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I saw a dog as mayor of some little city... pretty comfortable and very disappointing because of craziness of modern "System", isn't it?

You wouldn't understand... Stalin knew what true democracy was.

To be fair, a dog can run a government, because usually the person that appears to be "in charge" doesn't actually do anything, or they are a puppet that some other government has put in charge.

We tolerate capitalism because it basically allows the vast majority of us to live in peace, with massive amounts of food available, and all kinds of toys to play with, while the disgusting poors do all the labor in order to make us happy. If we can't find enough poors to do what we want at an acceptable wage, we either import them from other countries, or we export our operations to poor countries so we can have their poors manufacture stuff for us. USA #1.

Again like i said: Politics suck.
When will you people stop making threads about politics?

J.B.R said:

Again like i said: Politics suck.
When will you people stop making threads about politics?

Threads about politics are awesome because you literally can't tell if you are being trolled or not, so arguments go on forever.

J.B.R said:

Again like i said: Politics suck.
When will you people stop making threads about politics?

When we all decide to utterly cease caring about the mechanics that dictate the realities of our life and surrender to THE ETERNAL VOID OF NIHILISTIC NOTHINGNESS

frithiof said:

edit: And of course history is repeating itself, because nothing was learned the last time everyone fucked up.

Of course not. How can an economy that's based on absolute greed ever learn?

The fun thing is that 90% of these problems worldwide are Made in USA...

Graf Zahl said:

Of course not. How can an economy that's based on absolute greed ever learn?

The fun thing is that 90% of these problems worldwide are Made in USA...

Are you honestly going to try and say that socialism/communism never caused bad things to happen in this world because of greed?

frithiof said:

Are you honestly going to try and say that socialism/communism never caused bad things to happen in this world because of greed?

I don't believe he is, given his previous post left 10% of global economic problems unaccounted for.

Captain Ventris said:

I don't believe he is, given his previous post left 10% of global economic problems unaccounted for.

I personally find it hard to believe that the USA is 90% responsible for all of the economic decisions made in China...

Also, China has a population of over 1.355 billion, while the USA has merely 322 million.

How can such a small country (with such an obviously small penis) influence 90% of the world?

frithiof said:

I personally find it hard to believe that the USA is 90% responsible for all of the economic decisions made in China...

Also, China has a population of over 1.355 billion, while the USA has merely 322 million.

How can such a small country (with such an obviously small penis) influence 90% of the world?

UK, and Japan are both smaller countries than China, in land and population. Yet they managed to beat China's ass pretty bad throughout history.

Population size really means nothing, when you have maximum killing power.




*EDIT: Many of those countries buy their armaments directly from the United States too. Nevertheless, Russia has out sold the USA, in dealing weapons.

http://www.businessinsider.com/arms-sales-by-the-us-and-russia-2014-8

Kontra Kommando said:

UK, and Japan are both smaller countries than China, in land and population. Yet they managed to beat China's ass pretty bad throughout history.

Population size really means nothing, when you have maximum killing power.

http://i.imgur.com/3NUTdpV.png


*EDIT: Many of those countries buy their armaments directly from the United States too. Nevertheless, Russia has out sold the USA, in dealing weapons.

http://www.businessinsider.com/arms-sales-by-the-us-and-russia-2014-8

I would argue that sheer spending is a overrated factor when it comes to how powerful an army is. Isn't the US spending lots of money on some extremely expensive but supposedly useless high-tech weapons/gadgets that don't even work?

hardcore_gamer said:

I would argue that sheer spending is a overrated factor when it comes to how powerful an army is. Isn't the US spending lots of money on some extremely expensive but supposedly useless high-tech weapons/gadgets that don't even work?

I don't know, but a lot of other countries are buying those same weapons, which we're profiting from too. Anyone of those countries colored blue on the map in the link, would have people that could vouch for their effectiveness.

Being that the USA and Russia are basically the only real arms dealers in town; it comes down to comparing weapons from those two countries.

Kontra Kommando said:

I don't know, but a lot of other countries are buying those same weapons, which we're profiting from too. Anyone of those countries colored blue on the map in the link, would have people that could vouch for their effectiveness.

Being that the USA and Russia are basically the only real arms dealers in town; it comes down to comparing weapons from those two countries.

So if you had to choose between buying a nucular bomb from the USA or from Russia, which would you prefer?

frithiof said:

So if you had to choose between buying a nucular bomb from the USA or from Russia, which would you prefer?

If I was the head of a state, that would have a lot more to do with [insert random country]'s relationship with either nation. The map points out that much has not changed in regards to weapons dealing, since the Cold War. Other than that, it would have to be who could give the best offer.

Most people's economics views basically just boil down to voting whomever promises the most benefit/reward in return for nothing which results in increased spending or lower taxes without any concern for if it actually works or makes sense in the long term. It's all just pure populism and most people are too stupid to notice or care.

This is completely, completely accurate, however it's true for all factors that our votes are determined by, not just economic choices. Environmental stance, population control stance, immigration stance, etc etc - The voters for all this important shit are generally ignorant.

What other option do we have than simply trying to improve the democratic system? Having something as broad and important as "economics" not be decided by the people opens up bigger doors than ever for corruption.

If well fall back on a monarchy or dictatorship we'll be stuck in the "guaranteed ass backwards" position of hoping whoever becomes our leader is intelligent or at least benevolent, because if he/she is not, we'll be trapped in time again.

Democracy is loaded with flaws but the people living under have admittedly produced so much new technology and culture (to varying degrees) that it seems to be the best system we have thus far. I mean, never minding the fact that about half of American votes don't count for shit due to the fucked up way the electoral college works... It's no wonder that's still in place, it's so fucking easy for corrupt assholes to skew. That is what really needs to change here.

Anyway, that just my 2 cents.

EDIT: Yowza, are people actually blaming the USA for 90% of global problems? That's sort of... ridiculously exaggeratedly absurd, isn't it? I mean if you'd even said 50% I'd be like "well, yeah" but.. 90?! All other countries are run by perfect little angels!

Doomkid said:

EDIT: Yowza, are people actually blaming the USA for 90% of global problems? That's sort of... ridiculously exaggeratedly absurd, isn't it? I mean if you'd even said 50% I'd be like "well, yeah" but.. 90?! All other countries are run by perfect little angels!

Look.

90% of all "illegal" drugs are produced by the USA.

90% of all nuclear weapons are produced by the USA.

90% of all deaths on planet Earth are caused by the USA.

90% of words in the english language are caused by the USA.

90% of all weapons are sold by the USA.

90% of all pollution is caused by the USA.

It's extremely OBVIOUS to everyone with a brain (duh), that the USA is responsible for everything bad that happens in the world. Clearly nobody that isn't American has ever done anything bad...

hardcore_gamer said:

I am starting to seriously lean towards the idea that democracy should only cover social issues which are more abstract and subjective, while economic issues should be put into the hand of unelected technocrats.

Not sure how all this plays out in Iceland, but here in the states this is exactly the way things have worked for over a century.

Its already undemocratic. The Federal Reserve is made up of appointed positions as well as several commercial banks. The European Central Bank is even more independent from government.

I confess I am sympathetic to the suggestion in the OP - the number of people who do not seem to care about economics unless some kind of tax or other budgetary give away is thrown in at election time is very frustrating. The naive belief (or willingness to believe) that you can simply spend and spend is partially at the heart of the Greek debt saga imo. People love to blame politicians for this, but my view is that they are simply doing what is necessary to persuade a majority of the electorate to vote for them - if they didn't give the kind of electoral giveaways and instead stood on an enlightened ticket, then some more populist party would simply win in their stead.

As for leaving economic management to technocrats, whilst I sympathise I think fundamentally there must be no severing of the link between the vote and policy. If you do this you cross the Rubicon and risk getting something like China. The answer has got to be voter education. To this end, I believe that abridged economics should be a part of national curricula. (I guess the next problem would be deciding whether we'd be cool teaching economic liberalism as I'd personally prefer, when there are people who oppose it)

frithiof said:

Look.

90% of all "illegal" drugs are produced by the USA.

90% of all nuclear weapons are produced by the USA.

90% of all deaths on planet Earth are caused by the USA.

90% of words in the english language are caused by the USA.

90% of all weapons are sold by the USA.

90% of all pollution is caused by the USA.

It's extremely OBVIOUS to everyone with a brain (duh), that the USA is responsible for everything bad that happens in the world. Clearly nobody that isn't American has ever done anything bad...

Blast, your facts have thwarted me once again!

Doomkid said:

Blast, your facts have thwarted me once again!

The fun thing about politics is that "facts" actually have very little to do with what gets done.

At least, as far as the little people are concerned.

And by "little people", I mean the midgets. They are kinda funny to look at, aren't they? :)

There's some awareness out there, but in a way it's understandable. It's been done this way for so long that people are born into it and it's all they've ever known. The masses don't tend to notice the problems until a crisis occurs and by then it's usually too late. There are plenty of significant attempts to "democratise" money going on right now, but I get the impression that the crypto-space still isn't held in particularly high regard around here, heh.

J.B.R said:

Again like i said: Politics suck.
When will you people stop making threads about politics?

When Terry becomes Sheol lord.

Of course this will never happen.

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frithiof said:

Look.

90% of all "illegal" drugs are produced by the USA.

90% of all nuclear weapons are produced by the USA.

90% of all deaths on planet Earth are caused by the USA.

90% of words in the english language are caused by the USA.

90% of all weapons are sold by the USA.

90% of all pollution is caused by the USA.

It's extremely OBVIOUS to everyone with a brain (duh), that the USA is responsible for everything bad that happens in the world. Clearly nobody that isn't American has ever done anything bad...

What a nice sarcasm I see...

*EDIT* I'm dumb.
I totally forgot that posts don't merging...

hardcore_gamer said:

I am not even talking about the traditional left vs right economics debate here,

You aren't?

people having a voice is dumb, fascism is good, the elites always know best

Sure fooled me.

Capitalism and democracy are just two tools of government. They serve particular ends and help to solve particular problems, but they are not absolutes or rules unto themselves. Lots of people put these ideas on pedestals and take them too seriously. I think it's important to be acutely aware of the downsides of them and not dogmatically assume that they're always the right thing.

I favour an approach of checks and balances. For example the UK now has the Office of Budget Responsibility containing independent economists who analyse the government's policies and hold them to account. But companies equally need to be held accountable by democratic institutions and all too often it seems like they're given an easy hand.