On 12/18/2014 2:17 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 5:36 PM, Alberto G. Corona <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
That depend on what you call self interest. Understood in the narrow sense
as sort
term egoistic interest without a notion of common good, a democratic regime
would
not last a single year. It is evident, even a child can understand that if
a Judge,
or a politician only attend his own interest, they will sell themselves to
the one
that pays more for their prevarications. That absurd despise of morality as
irrelevan for politics, as if politics works like a mechanism of rational
rules
enforced externally without the need of internal self control is what is
the cause
of the unbelievable corruption that we can see everywhere. specially in
Europe.
I would argue that trade is the mechanism by which self-interest becomes aligned with
the common good. I further argue that the strong the trade networks, the less power the
oligarchy has, and this is the reason the oligarchy uses demagogy to place limits on
free trade. They correctly perceive it as an existential threat.
Consider and extreme scenario where courts are private companies. If you and me want to
sign a contract, we must also agree on a private court to have jurisdiction over that
contract. We agree to abide by that court's decision.
We will tend not to agree on courts runs by corrupt judges, so corrupt judges go out of
business. This strong trade network creates incentives that aligns the self-interest of
the judges with impartiality.
But all judges will be corrupt because the system says "self-interest above all". You must
know that businesses like to insert "arbitration" clauses into their contracts with
individuals which provide that any legal dispute will be settled by a mutually agreed upon
arbitrator. Why? Because the arbitrators all know that they will get many cases from the
business, but only one from the customer. So they all heavily favor the business.
If I don't abide by the court decision, then people will start being afraid of entering
into contracts with me.
But it will be too late, you (or someone like you who is more lucky) will already be rich
and powerful and able to dictate contract terms (c.f. Micro$oft).
My self-interest becomes aligned with following the law.
You are arguing from long term averages as though the system is stable and converges to
some fixed point. But I think it is very unstable and tends to a winner-take-all
plutocracy. Democracy tries to avoid this by one-man-one-vote and the Australian ballot
so votes can't be sold. Perhaps we should have Australian ballot in the legislature.
A private police might be hijacked by criminals, but in a well integrated network of
free-trade, eventually cooperation becomes more profitable than aggression.
It isn't "criminals" that are the problem. The police are hijacked by the "Police
Protection League" - public employee unions used to be illegal, but not anymore.
So the it's in the best interest of the police to protect the cooperators, because they
can pay better rates for the police's services.
Sure, the police are very good at protecting the property in Beverly Hills. Protecting
black people in Watts...not so much.
Can such a system be implemented? I don't know. It might be impossible to get to such a
well integrated economy. I am just describing the scenario "at the limit" to justify my
intuition that trade = peace, and that the oligarchy does not desire an approximation to
this scenario.
Oligarchy loves the idea. Trade is dominated by the rich. If all you have to trade is
labor, you have very little bargaining power. Who do think got rich from polio vaccine?
from the transistor? from computers? Hint - it wasn't the guy who invented them.
I am suspicious of people who advertise the need for more and more centralised power,
because they usually aspire to hold that power.
And I'm suspicious of people who think wealth will automatically be distributed
equitably.
And this is precisely the interest that is favoured by the mechanics of
democracy
and his aritmetical calculation of majorities by politicians oriented
toward short
term, four year mandates. The inevitable consequence is self disolving.
It is like a familly ruled by democracy. It is a question of time that the
short
time interest of the kids will destroy the familly.
From time to time democracy is questioned and for very good reasons. The
only
difference are the cycles of questioning of democracy. Some countries
arrive at the
logical consequence of democracy: anarchy or gobernment of the mob (as
Plato called
it) in less that forty years. Other, like EEUU or UK has lasted for
hundred years.
Probably by the strong sense of comunity and common good let´s say
patriotism that
exist in these countries.
The UK is an interesting example because it has transitioned, mostly peacefully, from
monarchy to aristocracy to limited democracy. I think it also illustrates the usefulness
of tradition since it relies heavily on tradition in law. This is can be threatened by
too much immigration.
Brent
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