Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

The Words We Say

I've been saying things much like this about the recent shooting, just shorter.
Tags: networking, politics, safety
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  • 83 comments
...go 14 levels up... Expand
siege

siege

January 11 2011, 03:20:49 UTC 10 years ago

forbidding the government from bargaining with collective entities

Despite the many things you and I hold in intense disagreement, this is a point I agree with and strongly advocate, given some thought to implementation. Limiting governance By The People to the voices of individuals is important for the sake of balance. However, political action groups and other political lobbies serve a purpose in the aggregation of contact, and monetary influence is still felt.

The poorest person is still a voice. The richest person is still a voice. Who should have more influence, and how can that be ensured? That's something I think about often.
ford_prefect42

ford_prefect42

January 11 2011, 03:36:52 UTC 10 years ago

Just to clarify, I was talking about government employees unions. Reason being, in collective bargaining between corporations and unions, there is a classic adversarial arrangement, and both sides have tools at their disposal. In government negotiations with unions, it is a cooperative arrangement on how to distribute the wealth of the people of the nation (or state, or whatever). All the tools go to the union, so it works out very badly for the main course. This is the primary reason that federal pay is now double private sector pay for the same experience and education level.


Moving on to lobbyists and voices.

The classical answer is that each person has the same voice in government.

That will mean that the rich wind up with more influence, because they have better tools to disseminate their information and more potent incentives. The factory owner has the factory as a platform from which to tell his employees "this law is bad for our company, if it passes, 100 of you lose their jobs". In a decent world, saying something like that would be perfectly acceptable behavior. It also means that if the employees dislike that company, they may vote for the law out of spite.

I have no particular problem with money and lobbies having *some* influence. The problem is when the influences of certain small groups with loud voices overwhelm the voices of larger groups.