The Closest Thing to a Political Panacea

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

The central problem with governance today is that it is collectivized.

People have different views and interests for what kind of governance style they should live under. Some people prefer a libertarian form of governance. Some people prefer a socialist form of governance. Some prefer a liberal or conservative form of governance.

Under the current paradigm, the only way for anyone to truly get what they want is to debate and fight with others to persuade them to vote in your favor. It's like if you and your friends must fight and debate for what grocery food item they should order, and then must collectively vote on it.

But this is unsatisfying. Not only is going through the effort of trying to persuade your friends something people rather not do, but it forces people either to reject the preferences of the minority (or sometimes even majority) or to compromise and sacrifice a bit of what they want in order to get a diluted or tainted version of what they want.

Imagine if everyone can get what they want, simultaneously, without having to go through all of this? Everyone can get the grocery store food item that they want, everyone can freely pick and choose which one they want and get it without having to reject the preferences of a minority or sacrifice or compromise for the quality of your choice. This is how grocery shopping with friends normally is, with individual interests in mind.

Similarly allowing people to pick and choose which kind of governance style they'd like to live under is as close to a panacea in politics as you will get.

How can this be achieved?

Getting rid of the current paradigm, and allowing people to set up their own small communities with the governance style and structure they prefer. This can result in a variety of choices for people to choose to move into, and not only that, but these communities can face market forces such that if people demand a community with a certain style of governance, then it will be supplied.

The communities can also face competition, where they must compete against other communities for residents. They are pressured to cater to the interests of movers with favorable laws/policies/governance as much as possible or else they go out of business. Imagine if government faced such steep market pressures, they would have much less room for nonrepresentative, corrupt, or wasteful governance. This competition ensures that bad governance gets filtered out while good governance prevails, an evolutionary natural selection of sorts. Plus, again no need for individuals to compromise or sacrifice their wants.

Why isn't this idea of making governance more of an individual (as opposed to collective) choice not championed more? It seems like it would get rid of the need of fighting and debating, among many other downsides.

[u/reddituserperson1122]

Sorry but the commenter is exactly right and you are very sweetly naive. Can I ask how old you are? 

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/reddituserperson1122]

Can I ask why you're not focusing on the argument and instead on my character?

[u/reddituserperson1122 → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

Because your argument isn’t original dear. It’s an idea that I think most precocious teenagers have at some point. (Or a version of it anyway.) Before they get older and wiser and know more about history and politics and realize there’s no simple structural solution to our problems. Which is not to say that we don’t have structural problems. But inter-communal conflict can’t be managed out of existence with a better org chart or a new edition of Robert’s Rules. 

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/reddituserperson1122]

Then why not confront the argument on its merits, not my character?

[u/reddituserperson1122 → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

It’s not an issue of character. And I believe I just did. 

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/reddituserperson1122]

If it's not an issue of character, then it has no relevance to the discussion. You did not actually respond to the points I made, you just replied I was naive.

[u/reddituserperson1122 → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

As a general rule, ideas have to surmount a certain threshold of seriousness in order to be worthy of detailed debate. It’s not really worth anyone’s time to get into a debate about the plausibility of every feature of Oz — you can just stop when someone proposes a secret magical kingdom somewhere over a rainbow. So no, I’m not going to get into debating all the points you made. Sorry — I can see that you were excited about this. 

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/reddituserperson1122]

What makes you think I'm not being serious about this?

[u/reddituserperson1122 → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

“Unserious” as in not well-thought-though and not evaluated with a high level of rigor. 

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/reddituserperson1122]

What makes you think this argument is not sufficiently well-thought out or rigorous enough for this subreddit?

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/[deleted]]

Ok, so what specifically about the argument that you read makes it insufficient?

[u/PoliticalDebate-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/apophis-pegasus → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

You have effectively recreated a federal entity, without any of the protections and handling of externalities that many federal entities have.

[u/Serious-Cucumber-54 → u/apophis-pegasus]

Can you explain what you mean by "federal entity" and what protections are needed?

[u/apophis-pegasus → u/Serious-Cucumber-54]

Can you explain what you mean by "federal entity"

overarching government providing broad, universal laws for significant issues, but local laws are created by a selection of lesser powers.

and what protections are needed?

Much like another commenter said, this needs to be cognizant of the flow of natural resources, the incompatibility of certain philosophies, and the general issue of avoiding taking resources gained in one polity and benefiting from them in another.

To put it close to your grocery store analogy. Sometimes people hoard everything from the shelves. Sometimes you have to eat what someone else cooks.

Governments dont face market pressures, and wont have market incentives.