philosophical question II
 

If we live in a democracy, and the poor(or more precisely the avereage income earner) are majority... why do the rich control the world?

Well we live(in the USA) in a republic, where select people take on the role of the many. So we have a representitive of many people there will be no direct vote of one person. Your vote does not matter, your electoral colleges representitives vote is what matters. They however are usually of lower upper class status, how can they accurately interpret what middle and lower classes need in the first place?

The rick control the world because the lower classes power is given to them to make thier decisions. Untill everyone can make their own decisions the rich will rule.

Shoudl everyone be given equal right to vote? Should ED in your senior class.. you know the kid... he smoked pot between every class, ate glew during art and randomly made farting noises to make people laugh... should he have equal say as an educated highly influential member of society? Yes, and no. His opinion should be heard, but there are reasons people exist to weed out those who opinions are, for lack of better words garbage.


Sorry for lack of grammer, spelling, punctuation and so on.. been a while since i been on the comp.

Here (Spain) is a constitutional monarchy, while the king is (now) primarily a decorative figure he is still the military head and has veto power over the executive on military questions. He was the one who led the transition from a dictatorship to democracy, (after the natural death of Franco on the 75 he took the power) by making legal all the political partys and convoking elections on the 77 and passing a joint ageed constitution with the congress on 78. (On 23-Feb-81 the extreme right wing part of the military did took the congress by the force with two tanks divisions to make a new dictatorship (with USAs CIA support, btw), when he said "cease and desist, you fools" and enforced the constitution)
(Before Franco´s right wing dictatorship we had two republics and loads of monarchys, a german king loosely connected by bloodline, a french governor brother of Napoleon... the list can go on...)

The parliament (legislative power) is composed by the congress and the senate, its members get there proportionally to the number of votes that gets the closed list of members each political party presents on each votation. The parliament proposes and passes laws and oversees the actuations of the government. The congress purposes and passes lawa, the senate can veto or make enmendations and return it to the congress before passing it and then the king can either veto it (never seen it yet) or make it official. The President comes from the election of the congress,(ie it is the head of the list of the political party with simple majority of congressists). The president then chooses whoever he wishes to make the government and they the rest of the administration (again the king can veto somebody out, but neveer seen it yet).
The judicial power oversees it all evolves according the law.

Ie it is like most of other democracys but with a king with veto power but no executive power whatsoever, and while im republican in the sense that it would be nice to have a republic (or at least a referendum to see if we want one), i am JuanCarl-ist in the sense that what he did during the transition was simply awesome.

But then, we alone vote rich ppl to be on power positions...



Why it must be a rich who makes the decisions? why it isnt the most qualified person, money and political loyalties apart? (dont tellme that it is so now, because for the most part that just isnt true, here and there too)

wouldnt it be desirable that the congresists (and, even better, the particular members of the government) get voted on a person by person basis insted of a closed list?
(i mean on the last elections i would even have voted some members of the right (err, i mean, center) wing party for the congress and specially (if i could have done so) to be on certain positions on the government, but i really wished others to not be even in the congress, as it is a closed list i was forced to vote the whole social-democrat list but then again some of the members didnt inspired enough confidence...)

If it is a person by person vote you can try to choose a congress that more closely expresses your political way of thinking... i know, it probably wouldnt be practical in terms of information to make the choice for the regular joe...
But then again the thing is: the rich control the information, and the more money you have the more propaganda you can put on circulation, and the more propaganda you put the more chances you get of being elected, so it is again the money... shouldnt be done something to it too?
(yeah i know since kerry got named head of the democrats he can only spend a fixed amount of money on propaganda till the elections, and the same will happen to bush when he gets elected as head of the republicans, and something similar happens here, but is that enough? and what about the "independent" media?)



Oh, Ed, yes i know him... he has some trouble speaking... he cant say nuclear for example... was here on university with me only because his dad caould pay it and even tough hes utterly clueless and spineless he will have a directive possition on a dad´s (or a friend of dad) company where he will be a puppet for the most part and lead a very easy life... the worst thing that can happen is that (god helps us) one day he wants to make a decision by itself... (specially if that decision involves somebody else)

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i would like to refine and check that but ive spent the 15 mins of the coffe on this and now gotta work, if there are inconsistencies point em and ill answer on the evening

Gosh... now i reread it... that is so against the spirit not only democracy but freedom, and market... (and so true btw:))

The correct answer is that nobody can CORRECTLY interpret the needs and much less the wants of all the population... (if it were so there wouldnt be market nor democracy, they just wouldnt be needed, its prime objective would be accomplished)
You however can try (lots of ways) and the feedback you get can help you do it more precisely. But noone can get it CORRECTLY. So.... wouldnt it be that the more all of us can say our needs and wants and the more those are taken into consideration (and not under a generic list of ppl with a generic program) the better?

But practically speaking, what are you suggesting?

Well dear Watson; that is THE question isn’t it? :D

if i had a theorical model that were absolutely right where i couldnt see any imperfections myself AND would it be implementable in the practice without insurmontable oppositions whatsoever i would be winning the nobel price on economics, peace (and maybe literature;)) right now....

The thing is: democracy and free market are the worst of the systems there are, with exception of all the others tested before...
BUT there isnt in the world an example of perfect democracy nor perfect free market.

So the other question is how do we steer the world torwards them?

I just can tell you the decisions and actions that are being taken right now by politicians and monopolys (err i mean... the big companys) mostly point directly on the other direction...

And it isnt a question for the rich to think but for all of us lowly bees


There are also problems with perfect free market and perfect democracy.
As you can see on my sig the gratest problem are the externalties.
Externalty can be defined most generaly as an unpercieved cost (negative externalties) or benefit (positive externalties) derived of the acts of somebody.
It is usually aplied to economics and the usage/production of goods. But the thing is that it can be also extended to social/political actions.
The simple examples are the one of the factory that pollutes to a river (if the costs of loosing the riverlife (and being unable to swim on it...) or the costs of cleaning it arent beared by the factory nor the end consumer the good is produced and demanded in excess of the optimum level)
And education (were the benefits are underpercieved by both the individual and the group (country/world...) and thus under produced and demanded)
But the concept of exterenalty can be applied to every thing and action.

The problem is that in perfect market we would use our percieved utility as the price of the action, rarely taking into consideration the externalties.
How to always take into consideration the externalties in the practice before making a decision (or at least implement political/economical/social systems that do) is the question of the billion...

Interesting, interesting.

I don't know if I agree with that- or at least, the statement needs to be more specific.
It is not so much (I would say) a lack of 'production and demand' of education that the country (I am writing from the US) suffers from, but more a lack of focus and direction in that education, which is a different issue.
Maybe considering education and it's benefits an externality is a problem in other countries, but it's already a pretty well-discussed issue in the US.
I would even say there is too much focus on so-called education at a University level- a lot of useless degrees and equally useless students coming out of the system. Four years would be much better spent working for many of them. But that's not really the issue at hand.

Eh.

I'm in the middle of reading More's 'Utopia'....is it supposed to be sarcastic, or does it just come across that way because we've seen communism try and fail?

Lol, u know what education serves for? ;)so that u alrready know what the **** im babbling about :D and that i knew wtf a doctor or engineer or psicolog or informatic etc babbles about when speaking about something on his area of expertice...:D

And, in a sci-fi unreallistical world, with a high enough level of education: so that we could make an educated guess about each politician individually, a guess about how he would fare on each government possition, and then vote them individually for a particular charge, because we have logical reasons to think it would make the choices that would represent us in the best possible way in that particular area .

serious now:
That is (one of the) issues at hand:
Here we also have excess of university degrees to the number of positions applicable. We also have a lack of specialized workers in some areas (construction for example) and our brighter researchers tend to go to the EU or the USA because there is also a lack of I+D+i funding by both companys and government.

I just ended my degree and im a bank teller with a temporal contract; thats hardly a work one would have to have got a "business administration and direction" 5 yrs degree to do... I also have courses and/or experience as a cameraman, non linear edition, 3D with maya, graphic design and webpages, children educator, Public relationships, copywriting and some programming...
should i have done a 2 yrs Proffesional Education as a plumber?
you know, those guys charge you whatever they wish... they are like the ****ing "Midas king":))
Not only for the money!, only because i had genuine interest on plumbing...
Even if i dont get a work with a pay according to my qualifications, just the experiences learning and doing those things were positive for me as a person and, i hope, for those arround me.
Now, it is fair that generally speaking you get to the jobs that theorically (but not legally) require a degree more quickly because of who you know (or who you are son of) than because of what you know? NO



Yes i oversimplified and made a very brief abstract of a very large question. Involving economical politics, micro and macro -economy and the mathematical branchs called "econometrics" and "Game theory". Education is one of the typical political economy textbooks examples about externalties.

You got a point on the excess of demand vs offer of degree level works, and that those that have studied and dont get a work at that level have direct costs associated with it .

From an individual pov it isnt optimal, but if you optimize for the whole society the positive externalties overwhelm it.



And it is costing me more time and brain activity than what i initially tought to write a basic "complete big picture for laymans, no maths, youll have to believe me or research on you own" abstract paper on "Perfect Market, how the clasic economical theory says it would work, and why there isnt one example of it on the face of earth" and "Political economy: externalties, the education"... but they will come...
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Havent read it, should i buy it and put it on my "to read" stack of books?
Have you read 1984? Its postulates are ridiculous, are they?
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Frist lets talk about the concept of externalty:
i found this somewhere time ago, alrready translated so it will alleviate my poor english skills :) and illustrates the point fairly well

Let us assume that you own a home in a sub-division. You spend thousands of dollars landscaping and maintaining your home site. You maintain your house very well. Your neighbor is one of those folks who just does the minimum. His/her place looks O.K., but it is not on the Parade of Homes list.
Do your actions increase the value of your neighbors home?
If he/she were to place their home on the market, would the potential buyer look around at neighbors homes and the neighborhood in general?

I think you would agree that you have added value to your neighbors home. Now how will you get that value added to your neighbor’s home when he/she sells it? Will you politely ask for your share at the closing? What is your neighbor likely to tell you? Thus we have what is known as a positive externality.

(edit: and how can you measure the exact value of that externalty? on this example would be by comparing the price of the house of your neighbor, the one with great sights to your masterwork with another, beyond sigh in the same partition, that, with everything else the same, hasnt those sights, more precisely with one that has the average neighborhood sights (oh if all the externalties were so easy to measure...)

Now assume you have a neighbor that does not maintain their home site well at all. Your neighbor has junk cars in the back yard on cinder blocks, a goat running around grazing the over grown crabgrass in the yard, a cat crapping on your yard marking it as his, and paint peeling off the siding and trim. If you were to sell your house this would probably diminish the value of your well kept home (negative externality). How would you recover this loss?

Eh dragonfx, yo soy de Sevilla!!!!!!!!!!!:attn: :attn: :attn: :attn:

Viva Españaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!

On the original question, money = power.
Events in time are farily cyclical so things keeps on coming around and repeating.
Things change ever so slightly and a new name is given to that similar cycle
I dont have a problem with absolutely everybody having an equal weighted vote. In such a case the mass viewpoint will become the most apparent (whether good or bad).
Events which happen near times when the mass viewpoint is required can and do infuence that viewpoint in a negative way. After the mass viewpoint has given rise to restrictive control there comes the long battle of removing the restrictions back to the original position.

hey you got my brain working talking about this, cool :D