A very rough list of the political / economic questions on my mind at the moment

[chess]

I realise that most of the following is pretty far up the idealism curve / probably not actually relevant because nobody who matters is going to ask my opinion on it, but these are the things churning around in my head that I'm trying to research / figure out at the moment.

These are mostly notes to myself, but I would appreciate input on any of them too (especially if it is in the form of 'you should read X' rather than 'that is completely stupid why are you even thinking about it?').

Most important as it's actually a clear and present demand of many people:

* 'Ban Lobbying' potentially impacts a lot of 'good' charities / think-tanks / individuals who are dedicated to a cause. How do we distinguish between 'constituent who has a legitimate interest in an issue', 'genuine advice from experts' and 'paid-for lobbying'?

Things I want to prove / disprove in general, and ideally write a clear and simple explanation of, because I keep getting into arguments over them and am ill-informed:

* Returning to a gold standard / gold or some other solid actually useful commodity as a store of value - what terrible things does that do to the world economy?
* Debt-backed money - is it actually untenable or can appropriate regulations to avoid obfuscation of debt values save it? (If so, what are these?)
* Alternative bases for money - what are the characteristics of the 'forex standard'? what about People-Backed Money (somewhat similar to the Equal Money guys' idea, but with actual exchange rather than a system where prices can't be market-set because you don't actually receive anything - so why ask for money at all when you could earn more social capital by gifting it?) what money-sink tricks can you use to get around the 'inflation is bad, it steals my savings' bleating while still maintaining an incentive to keep the economy running rather than letting money stagnate?
* Why social capital / 'whuffie' only schemes are a Bad Plan (or are they?)
* What are the downsides of 'socialise basic needs, capitalism for luxuries'? How does that work in practice? What are the awkward edge effects which need to be controlled for? How do you do it without authoritarian measures / what level of authoritarian measures are acceptable?
* Is it possible to have a government without going down the icky routes of 'monopoly on force' or 'serious brainwashing program'?
* 'banking', up to and including credit default swaps and CDOs, is an inevitable evolution of the desire to trade - discuss
* What kind of things constitute 'artificial scarcity', and how can we remove these barriers to progress in the easiest fashion - or are they in fact doing a good thing even though they have undesirable side effects? (Related: how do we manage the transition between 'full employment everyone needs to do as much work as they can to produce mostly physical stuff' and 'technological unemployment, most people are out-competed by machines and need to find something else to do', especially the tricky middle stages where we still need some compulsory work?)
* Is it possible to have a government without going down the icky routes of 'monopoly on force' or 'serious brainwashing program'?
* What are the alternative modern government forms to 'representative democracy', how would you implement them and what are their pros and cons?

Comments

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

'Ban Lobbying'

Follow the money. I think that would be complicated in practice but potentially effective.

[favouredenemy.livejournal.com]

Chris Martenson has a fantastic and simple series called 'the Crash Course'. I'd advise anyone to read it. I think a lot of your questions about the current state of affairs will be answered in simple, factual terms.

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

[daxx-61.livejournal.com]

Quick and dirty answers to some of these. Bear with me as I'm currently home sick and my head is a big ball of fuzz.

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* Returning to a gold standard / gold or some other solid actually useful commodity as a store of value - what terrible things does that do to the world economy?

You'd get laughed out of the room if you seriously proposed a return to the gold standard to any economist worth their salt.

Primarily it would hamper both growth and spending. Fiat money allows much faster economic growth because expansion of the money supply is actually feasible, and doesn't encourage saving nearly as much. You'd also effectively lose control over monetary policy and the government would be less able to respond effectively to economic crises.

* Why social capital / 'whuffie' only schemes are a Bad Plan (or are they?)

Because they rely on a number of things: there being no scarcity (obviously this won't work as scarcity will always exist); some universal measure and method of measurement of social capital which isn't subjective (this doesn't exist either); and here being no way of gaming the system (which would make it no different to other currencies).

* What are the downsides of 'socialise basic needs, capitalism for luxuries'? How does that work in practice? What are the awkward edge effects which need to be controlled for? How do you do it without authoritarian measures / what level of authoritarian measures are acceptable?

It really depends on what you mean by "socialise". There are various degrees of this from instituting a partial command economy, to Ingsoc, to a free market with subsidies. The downsides are largely reliant on what method you use - mostly there is a tradeoff you have to make between actual provision of basic needs and efficiency.

A good example of that tradeoff is actually the NHS, which has a serious problem - it's a fiscal black hole. It is genuinely not possible to spend "enough" on the NHS regardless of whatever else the government is spending money on, at least until the day where we eliminate all death and disease. The government therefore has to make a judgement on what level of spending is sufficient to do the most social good whilst leaving some money for other necessities.

So you'd essentially have to define what is "enough" in terms of provision, and what counts as a basic need/luxury. It would be a difficult project and most likely it would be simpler and more efficient to just subsidise a free market, or privatise certain parts of key industries, as we do at the moment.

* Is it possible to have a government without going down the icky routes of 'monopoly on force' or 'serious brainwashing program'?

The question you have to ask here is "what does the government do when a bunch of violent nutters disagree with them?". A government virtually defines itself by having a legal monopoly on force, because without that the government is inherently unstable (and not in a positive way).

The other way is by unanimous consent of the governed, but getting that is tricky.

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I may throw some answers up to the others at some point if I have more time.

[nwhyte]

'Ban lobbying' may look superficially attractive. But in fact, as you point out, it would penalise the committed but poor, while the rich and unaccountable would simply find other means of exerting influence, as they always have.

Obviously I should declare an interest since I'm sort-of in that line of business myself. I help governments which have insufficient diplomatic resources of their own to interact with the European Union. If my activities were banned, the people I work with would essentially have no means of talking to officials who are making rather important decisions about their countries.

I should also report that the vast majority of officials who I have had contact with actually welcome the chance to converse with lobbyists and other influencers. They are conscious that they work in boxes in their organisations with very few of their colleagues interested in what they are working on and with only limited access to information from the outside world. Often they also feel that interested members of the public have a right to have the development of policy explained to them. I think very few officials would want a ban on lobbying (there are some, but they tend not to be very good at their own jobs).

It is fair to demand that lobbyists and officials are transparent about what meetings have taken place and on what subject. It is absolutely right to demand that no public official should accept money or non-financial reward from a lobbying group (ie anything that looks like a bribe). It's certainly reasonable to scrutinise and expose the operations of those who are acting on behalf of the rich and powerful. But it's foolish to claim that the world would be a better place if it didn't happen.

[requiem-17-23.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced in the ability of anyone who has made a career out of governing to understand any technical subject. If they were capable of understanding it, they'd probably be practicing it instead of in politics.

Given that: What's the difference between lobbying and making sure ministers are well informed? And possibly of comparable importance, how do you prove that you are doing one and not the other?

[artw.livejournal.com]

I think the reason why people accept that there is a government is that a predictable unjust world is a lot easier to live in than a chaotic unjust world. We don't all get a fair share and we know that the policeman is not always your friend, but clean water comes out of the tap, there is food in the shops all year every year, there are doctors and medicines in the hospitals, the crime rate is falling as is the road accident rate, etc. I don't believe we'll ever live in a world where there isn't any work because machines do it all, because so much work is about human contact; the problem is the distribution of resources and the ideology that people shouldn't be paid for doing nothing unless they're rich.