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Nornagest comments on Rationality Quotes February 2013 - Less Wrong
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That's a... remarkably loose definition of corruption you've got going on there.
I'm not sure it's practical to make a political system completely free of incentives, as long as you're working with humans governing humans: the closest approximations I can think of would have to involve a leadership caste socially and economically isolated from the people they govern and without any means of improving their own welfare, and that's so far removed from anything historical I know about that I don't even want to try working out all its long-term implications. Imperial Japan's about the closest, and that degenerated at first into proxy governance by provincial warlords and later into a military-aristocratic dictatorship ruling in the imperial family's name but not in practice controlled by it.
Now, given anything resembling our existing politics, it seems naive to behave as if the default incentives surrounding political power are nonexistent or weak enough that they're drowned out by altruistic impulses among those inclined to seek power -- or even among random members of the populace, if you prefer direct democracy. This being the case, it makes far more sense to me to design systems to reward competent government -- however defined -- rather than to high-handedly dismiss any such attempts as unethical and rely wholly on the better angels of politicians' natures.
I'm not quite prepared to say that there can't exist any candidate systems where this wouldn't be necessary, but if you've got a proposal like that, we should really be talking about that proposal rather than speaking in generalities.
I'm not sure such a thing has been proposed (after reading most, if not all of this thread); in fact it sounds so absurd that I can't imagine what such a proposal would look like.
Maybe ChristianKI will correct me if he/she really is proposing a "political system completely free of incentives".
In The Tamuli, by David Eddings, one country's political system is described as an attempt to limit corruption. (The usual caveats regarding fictional evidence apply here, of course). In short, when a person is elected onto the ruling council of the Isle of Tega, all that he owns is sold, and the money is deposited into the country's treasury. He is then simply not permitted to own anything until his term is up, some four years later (presumably food and housing is provided at the expense of the state); when that time comes, the money in the treasury is divided among the ministers in proportion to how much they put in (and the former ministers presumably start re-purchasing stuff). Note that the one thing that the ministers are not allowed to do is to change the tax rates.
This is described as having two consequences. First of all, the Isle of Tega is the only country that always shows a profit. Secondly, the minute that a man is nominated to become a minister, he is put under immediate armed guard to prevent him from running away (and remains under armed guard until his term is over). A government position is viewed with the same trepidation as a prison sentance.
Wouldn't they still have incentives to aid parties who promise to repay them once their term is up? Similar to how some legislators conveniently acquire lucrative positions requiring little-to-no effort on their part from companies who they have helped out through the years once they've retired from politics?
Or to aid their families and friends, or to adopt policies that benefit their industry or hometown or social class -- I considered similar systems when I was writing the ancestor (probably unconsciously influenced by Eddings; I haven't read him in years, though), but decided that they were transparently unworkable.
Yes, it seems both too drastic, and not really able to accomplish the desired result.
Funny, I've wondered about a similarly drastic action though to improve the quality of voting, namely for each election select a random 1% (or some such -- small enough to not crash the economy) of the population and lock them up with nothing to do but learn about what's going on in the country and in the world and debate who they should vote for. In the end, unlike in the jury system, it should still be a secret ballot. Of course, if as many people were exempted as in jury duty, then it would be biased. One would have to see how much exemption was unavoidable, and and see whether the bias could be sufficiently minimized.
If it's small enough not to crash the economy, then is it big enough to reliably alter the election results? And who provides the information for them to read through?
Only if they can trust the promise; once their term is up, the parties have little real incentive to stick to their promise, after all.
There will be an incentive to aid people who immediately donate a great big chunk of money to the State, as that money will be shared out among the ministers at the end of their term in any case; but the incentive only works, there, if the great big chunk of money is more than the state would obtain by other means.
In iterated games, defection has its price.
I see your point and, on further thought, acknowledge it as correct.