Readit NewsThat is literally the system that exists today, except instead of in the open (e.g. salary) it's through stocks with insider information and who knows how else.
The point isn't to optimize for people who are most incentivized through money, the point is to make the position more accessible for anyone who actually wants to do the "service" part, and to minimize the reasons that it's hard. As the previous commenter pointed out, right now independently wealthy people are some of the only ones who are actually capable of running, and someone who isn't independently wealthy who wins is even more susceptible to bribes because they may be in a tenuous financial position.
I would agree with you that we want individuals who's goal is to do "service" for their society, but our current system obviously isn't working and there are a lot of solid reasons why something like this _could_ improve the situation, what alternatives would you recommend?
Agreed. But the difference is I'm saying a better solution is to adjust the incentives rather than just keeping the same incentives but making it more transparent.
I would be in favor of higher pay for Congress given the limits of the job (maintaining at least two residences in DC and their home state, for example). Perhaps we just disagree on the level. I don't want it to be "lucrative" as you said originally (ie I don't want it to be a way to get rich), but it should be high enough to not be prohibitive to go into service. There are also some knock-on effects that would need to be managed; for example, I think overall civil servant pay is pegged to Congressional pay limits. Other solutions may be to have designated Congressional housing (so at least they can't use the housing cost as an excuse).
software is only tougher to estimate if incompetent people (vast majority of the industry, like 4+ million) is doing the estimating :)
Saying incompetence is the reason is a trivial rebuttal that ignores the central claim about complexity. It’s like saying “the reason why we don’t have a theory of everything is because we don’t have competent physicists”
That's actually probably the best reason for someone to get involved in civil service. If the salary is lucrative enough, the incentive to stay in office will be high and, importantly, money won't be a factor keeping people from getting into office.
The problems we currently have is:
- Money is an incentive to get into office, but that money comes from interaction with wealthy individuals.
- Nothing stops congress people from leveraging their public actions into lucrative private industry.
- Independently wealthy individuals have a much easier time getting elected than an average citizen.
Think of it this way, if the salary is 0, then you effectively lock out all but the wealthy from office. If the salary is just enough to get by, that still locks out potentially qualified people simply because they can get better jobs out of congress. But if it's a lucrative salary, then you not only make it so people can make it in congress, they can be more competitive against a wealthy competition. They also don't need things like "contributions" to stay afloat. You'd simply be less tempted to take a $10k bribe if it jeopardizes your $1m salary. That alone significantly raises the barrier for bribery.
But we should do that in tandem with cutting off obvious corruption routes. Being a representative should mean you can't work in private industry for 10 years. You should only be allowed to trade 2 ETFs, an all stock and all bond ETF. And the insider trading laws should result in immediate expulsion from congress.
If you select those people, what’s to keep them from creating a system that gives them ever more amounts of money, to the detriment of their constituents?
Maybe a better system for selecting civil servants is…I dunno…a system that optimizes for that “service” part? It’s shocking how in the last few decades we’ve convinced ourselves that money is the only filter that motivates people and is the inherent driver of all human action.
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The only reason people make money off of stocks is because at the end, someone gives those companies money. And everyone has a choice to vote with their wallets and through their actions in general.
For example, take Elon and his actions over the past few years. What should have happened is that Tesla sales dropped across the board, and everyone who owns a Tesla should have been in a rush to sell it for fear of it getting scratched or them personally blacklisted from stuff and ridiculed for driving a Tesla. Tesla employees should also have faced the same public pressure and quit.
But people don't care - at the end of the day, politics on Capitol hill is mostly a meme, but what matters is their personal satisfaction. And you look ridiculous if you refuse to get in your coworkers Tesla. So now Elon is a trillionaire.
On the flip side, in a capitalistic sense, it honestly doesn't matter if people are rich, the thing that should matter is what power the money gives them. Rich people buying mansions is a good thing - thats money to workers for construction, staff for housekeeping, and so on. Rich people doing things like being able to buy whole media platforms and censoring things is definitely not good though.
The question is, is society headed in a direction where people have more and more apathy and eventually nothing will matter as things get progressively worse and everyone is just complacent, or is there a bottom line where people start paying attention enough and actually fighting for change when it gets bad enough.
Small quibble. The reason why people make money off stocks is largely because people think people will give those companies in the future. People aren’t just trading on dividends, they’re trading on PE ratios.
Otherwise, companies like Tesla would be worth much less than Toyota (which gets more revenue, higher gross profit, and higher profit margins).
The counter counter argument is that you could be a career politician working your way up: two terms at city council, two as mayor, two as governor etc…and by the time someone is voted into the national stage they presumably have decades of experience.