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Making a decision can be tricky sometimes - and using a
population-based
method of picking from a different set of policies is
the least-worst
method we have of doing that.
I propose a marginally even leastest worse method.
Say 50% of the population want an aggressively
individualistic
state
where it's every man for themselves and all the glory of
victory to the
best and the brightest - and at the same time, the other
50% of the
population want a warm socialist utopia where everyone
wants to hold
hands and be wrapped in government issue kindness
bestowed via a
centrally administered bureaucracy from cradle to grave.
Whoever wins the election, the other 50% of the
population have to suck
it up.
So, how about a system of government that delivers what
people want? So
you voted low tax, minimal government intervention in
your life - great!
- off you go! You voted for high tax, big service - hey!
- that's what
you get aswell.
The key here is running a multi-state system - taxes are
collected based
on your voting preferences - but equally so is access to
government
services. Want education, access to libraries and a free
-at the point-of
use health-service? It all depends on your voting
choices.
Some services are provided as a bare minimum, based on
the nuisance
they'd cause if they weren't provided for all e.g. waste
collection,
emergency services etc - everything else is vote
dependent.
This way, a country can (for example) both run a
national health service, and not at
the same time - keeping everyone happy.
You probably did not observe this idea
The_20Heisenberg_20Political_20Principle
[theircompetitor, Jul 14 2014]
[link]
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Just make all services optional with a flat fee based on the cost of supplying the service to all those who have opted for it charged to those who opt in for a service, would get you exactly what your proposing plus it's more flexible, they could change their mind on what they want mid term. |
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As everyone is in a definite state of opt in or opt out there's no wave form to collapse either so I fail to see any connection to Schrodinger's cat. |
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If as your preamble suggests you were looking for a better voting system (bearing in mind there are seldom only two possible answers (candidates) to a question (to vote for) in politics) you might consider something like the single transferable vote. |
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Which raises the point your 50% for & 50% against model is overly simplistic. |
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With first past the post (the model I assume you're using) & 5 candidates say it's entirely possible for one to win with as little as 21% of the vote despite 79% of the voters loathing them & wanting absolutely anyone other than them to win. |
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Did you just hand my beloved [zen-tom] a bone?
Wow. Cruel world out there zenny. |
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Hey Skewed, I guess the difference is that many
services run on an
"insurance" type of model - so the charge-per-use
method of funding isn't appropriate. Also, changing
your mind mid term is exactly what we don't want as
otherwise everyone will vote for low-tax, low-service,
until they want that service, at which point they may
not be in a position to pay for it. |
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Similarly, democracy is almost exclusively about the
distribution of service costs - can you come up with
more than one counter-example? |
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The connection is that you can have a superposition of
policies - e.g. a functioning national health service
and a functioning low-tax, privately funded health-
care system - at the same time. The waveform never
needs to collapse, as is normally the effect shortly
after an election. |
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Thanks [blissy] don't worry, quite happy to accept
buns and bones alike. |
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As with any political idea - people like to split
themselves into for and against - which is probably,
in this post-classical era, a bit of a silly position
to be in. |
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//The connection is that you can have a superposition of policies// |
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Got it, the policies not the individuals, I withdraw the Schrodinger relevancy complaint. |
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"This way, a country can (for example) both run a
national health service, and not at the same time -
keeping everyone happy." This would make me very
happy for sure. |
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While we're at it, I fail to see how providing an
example that uses 50/50 as a means of illustrating a
concept equates to naïve or wrong. Want to try 21/79?
Or 21/21/21/21/16? Pick your own example, any of them
should work equally well. If that helps, be my guest -
but I don't think it's a core part of the idea. |
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I suppose if you had 100, or a thousand, or a million
different options, and the split of the vote was
1/1/1/1/.../1 then it might get complicated in terms
of implementation - so it makes sense to consider
something similar to the current set of choices we're
offered as a starting model. |
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//many services run on an "insurance" type of model - so the charge-per-use method of funding isn't appropriate// |
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Re-read what I said on this point. |
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//just make all services optional with a flat fee based on the cost of supplying the service to all those who have opted for it// |
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A flat fee assessed on the cost of providing the service to all those availing themselves of it divided by the number of those availing themselves of it. |
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a) That is the insurance model. |
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b) That's exactly what you get with your proposal. |
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OK, so you're asking what's the difference between a
vote and an
"opt-in"? |
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One difference that you've already highlighted is that
votes are scheduled on a
suitably long-term basis (4 years) which is
probably long enough to make this a stable enough
arrangement and removing the ability to opt-in/out
halfway through. |
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Another part is that by linking service-opt-in to some
level of governmental responsibility is to
differentiate between "public" and "private" - the
detailed and pros and cons of which are fairly well
known and are well discussed elsewhere. |
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Which doesn't change the most basic problem with your idea. |
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So everyone who can afford private health care opts out, health care is then only funded by those who opted in, you don't see a problem right there? |
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I'll give you a minute to think about it. |
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As it happens though I wasn't asking what's the difference between a vote & an opt in, I was pointing out the lack of difference from a final results standpoint & suggesting it would be cheaper & more flexible to use the opt in / out method. |
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If you want to avoid flexibility (for the purpose of stability) then fine, just make it a 4 year term opt in / opt out. |
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//fail to see how providing an example that uses 50/50 as a means of illustrating a concept equates to naïve or wrong// |
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Let me just climb down off this horse so I can see the screen better. |
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I'd kind of got the bit between my teeth there hadn't I, changing the wording so it's less confrontational, but the gist of it still holds (for me) at the moment. |
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<edit> identified that basic problem yet? |
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//Did you just hand my beloved [zen-tom] a bone?// |
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//This way, a country can (for example) both run a national health service, and not at the same time// |
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It wouldn't Though, that's the basic problem with it, can you work out why? |
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Yes of course - the argument is obvious (if
simplistic) - but the equally simplistic counter
problem with the alternative
scenario is using government as a stick to force
people to pay
for things they don't want. |
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People get pretty cross about that. |
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So this is intended as a step towards a sensible
compromise that manages to
superposit(?) both irreconcilable truths at once, and
(hopefully) achieve a situation
that's better than the current one - or, as I
succinctly put it in the idea header -
"a marginally even leastest worse method". |
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And you know what? I think it probably would work out
- not all solvent folks want to use private health care
(I know I don't) and not all poor folks want their
principles to be overridden by economics. |
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At the same
time, if voting turnout is anything to go by - people
seem to be less interested in politics these days,
and by directly linking your political choices to
things that have a direct impact on your, and your
families' lives, I contend would be good for society
as
a whole. We'd need to come up with some default status
for these non-voters regards their rights and
responsibilities - but again, I'm seeing that as
another driver for more involved politics. |
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The overall result might just be that good, sensible
economically responsible parties put together good,
sensible, economically responsible policy documents,
and stick to them - rather than the knee-jerk media-
driven, extreme-issue politics of today - plus an
engaged electorate who are both self-and- socially
interested. |
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If the intention was to improve peoples involvement with the political process (get more of them to (a) vote (b) actually pay attention to what they're voting for then I approve the motives, not what the idea says, if it was would still have a problem with the methodology. |
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Lets take health care for example (seeing as we already have). |
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If everyone who can afford private health care opts out (with their vote) this only leaves those who can't. |
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If health care costs $100 & 100 people have opted for a government health plan then the cost is $100 per person (the government still has to pay the actual / normal cost of the care) so by the normal insurance type model the tax required from them is $100. |
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If they couldn't afford $100 for private health care individually then they can't afford it for public health care as a group, ergo they opt out or are jailed for not paying their tax. |
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The only other alternative is the government subsidises it, which is stupid because you've just ended up pushing a lot of paperwork around to end up exactly where you started with the higher earners subsidizing the lower earners through their tax. |
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So not (all) who can afford private will opt out, but nearly all will. |
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//so not (all) who can afford private will opt out but
nearly all will// |
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All the above rests upon that subjective assumption -
Personally, that's not an assumption I share or agree
with - but you're welcome to continue holding it. |
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And you're right - if that assumption is true, then
those services so affected would suffer accordingly. |
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This system would allow the empirical testing of those
assumptions to be carried out - and, based on the
results, changes made, or alternative forms of funding
found or created - once again, everyone (whatever
their subjective opinions) wins. |
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Now you're just being silly. |
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Really? It seems a fairly sensible, rational argument to
me - unless you're being sarcastic! It's never easy to
tell. |
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//Really?// //unless you're being sarcastic!// |
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In this case a little of both. |
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The idea most people won't take the option of paying less tax was what I was referring to (the rest of the post came up while I was typing, give me a minute to read the rest). |
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Empiric testing? with peoples (children included) health care (meaning lives)? |
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I refer you sir to my prior anno & expand it to include the entirety of you last anno on the grounds I can only believe your being ironic. |
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And here's the thing - certainly people want to pay
less tax, but if they've the choice between paying
100$ less in taxes, but have to balance that with
paying an additional 110$ in private health-care fees,
then maybe they should look closer at their choices. |
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There is a lot of emotive stuff here - some people see
"government" and turn off - and assume that private
healthcare must always be cheaper, and/or better than
a government-run service. Maybe both? Having had
experience of both systems (in this case) that's not a
view I necessarily share. I think if people were given
a choice, they might sit up and take more notice. If
people had chosen to pay their tax for an NHS that was
performing less well than an equivalent private
practice, they might be more likely to do something
about it. Right now, those distinctions are difficult
to make - and you'd need to transparentalise the whole
system for that to work. |
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Of course, there may be some people who are prepared
to risk dying in the road to save their 100$ and
that's their choice too. For me, this is where charity
serves a role - but that's probably a contentious view
- another opinion might say that there *must* be a
government provisioned safety net - I'm not sure how
this might fit into the mechanics of the idea - but I
appreciate it's currently a blind spot. |
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I don't think you understood what I meant about empiricism -
I was just suggesting that if 20 people got in a boat that
started sinking, and could see 4 other boats that weren't
sinking, they'd have the opportunity to jump across to one of
the other boats (at the next election) - or, to shout out at the other boat-folk and say "hey, how
come your boats aren't sinking?" and then enact or do whatever it is they are doing to stop the boat
sinking. The alternative is to
do what we currently do which is all get into the same boat
and spend all the time shouting at each other, hoping that
the boat doesn't sink - since if it does, we're all screwed. |
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The empiric part of the first example is that its transparent
which set of policies (the boats) are working, and which are
not. There's no opportunity to do that if you're all in the
same boat, except to refer to previous boats - but that's a
bit harder to do. |
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So I don't think it's anything to do with testing or risking
people's lives - it's just a way of spreading out the risk -
in a way that each individual person takes some
responsibility for how they choose to interpret and deal with
that risk. The alternative is that many people are forced to
take the same risks that the majority have chosen for them. |
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But this is a great case in point - here we are, with two (possibly) irreconcilable
points of view - how should we progress? In the real world, you'd go your way, and I'd
go mine - just as the idea suggests. I guess that makes it baked - in a sense. |
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[+] just for getting the Umlaut right ... |
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//some people// //assume that private healthcare must always be cheaper// |
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Only the very silly who haven't taken five seconds to consider that both services are subject to precisely the same costs with the notable exception of the profit margin for the private services shareholders. |
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//certainly people want to pay less tax, but if they've the choice between paying 100$ less in taxes, but have to balance that with paying an additional 110$ in private health-care fees// |
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False argument: you're ignoring the fact those opting out are most likely the better off who are paying a higher level of tax than the less well off. |
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The tax system is skewed so the high earners are maybe paying $150 & low earners $50 (assuming equal numbers of each). |
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So if the cost of any health care is $100 dollars & private healthcare (with the shareholders profit margin) is $110 then those better off opting out save $40. |
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The gist of what your suggesting (or at least it's inevitable result) is ring-fencing the high earners from the low earners so they don't have to subsidise them. |
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If you're not ignoring facts to make your arguments fit you have a very poor grasp of economic reality & working tax systems? |
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//there may be some people who are prepared to risk dying in the road to save their 100$// |
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I think you're forgetting about the very large numbers of low earners who simply wouldn't be able to afford it, wouldn't be a choice for them. |
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Not without it being subsidised, & this (as presented) by ring fencing the high earners tax from that of the low earners removes any option of subsidy. |
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Add the option of subsidy back in & you nullify the whole thing & will just be wasting money (which will have to be paid for with more tax) shuffling paper around. |
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You're right, that would be a possible effect! As
you'll
also no-doubt be aware, progressive income tax always
has
that effect, under whatever system it forms a part of
- and
that kind of self directed ring fencing happens all
the
time. But I don't really want to get bogged down in
the pros
and cons of different taxation policies - I've lived
under a
few! - So let's assume a suitably balanced policy is
in
place that reduces the specific progressive-tax
related ring
fencing problem to a point where it doesn't present an
issue. |
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I do think the subsidy thing is a red-herring though.
Unfortunately, in terms
of resolving it, all I think we can do is generate hot
air on this one - so
unless we can somehow generate and look at some
figures, I guess we'll have to
move on from this one. |
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Sorry, you just happened to hit on an area I've given a lot of thought one way or the other. |
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The main problem I see with it is that I don't think there is a way round that effect, anything that gets round the ring fencing rolls back into taxation on those that opted out (with their vote). |
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And not getting round it will probably damage the economy. |
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Well over 50% of any population is going to fall into the lower earner category (take a look at a typical supermarket or office, how many check out / basic admin staff per supervisor or manager are there?). |
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So if they're all forced to spend more for the absolute necessities they already buy they'll have less for non-necessities so sales in all other sectors drop. |
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lower turnover > layoffs to preserve profit margins > more people on benefits > more tax on those still in work > etc. |
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If I was an industrialist I wouldn't want this as policy. |
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The only reasonable way round it might be having certain policy areas exempted but that weakens the idea, most would be the ones people cared about so the encouraging voters effect would be weakened. |
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I promise not to raise the issue again ;) |
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Here's 3 possible ways out of that particular dead
end then:
VAT (sales tax), corporation tax, a flat income tax. |
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None of them a panacea, none of them immune
to some of
the points you raise, but all offering an alternative
to the
worse skewing effects of a progressive income tax. |
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But no I don't particularly want to discuss tax in
detail - I
take your point on the possibility of opting out,
and already
call that "brain drain" when it happens under the
current system. So we
know it happens, and we know there are ways of
raising
revenue that can mitigate against it. Nuff indeed. |
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I promised not to continue along this line, so I won't ;p |
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this process is occurring in the US, as Texans have
recently taken to pointing out, they have an
immigration problem at both their southern and
northern borders. |
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Granted, one cannot opt out of federally imposed
laws, regulations and taxes, but one has ample
options to escape local governments. |
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[theircompetitor] I knew that Heisenberg idea existed, I
just wasn't able to find its position with any
certainty. |
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Just one of many problems that Texas has. |
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Op in/out doesn't work for the majority when the nearly all the wealth is held by a tiny minority of the population, and in fact is exactly what that tiny minority is trying to achieve - with considerable success - as they can well afford to opt out and take care of themselves. |
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Aside from that you have to believe that votes are what determine the outcome of elections. |
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What I was saying [hobo]. |
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a) Throw in a legal minimum-wage index linked to inflation that actually reflects the real cost of living (including health care & retirement, which as best I can determine the "living wage" in UK doesn't) +10% say. |
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b) Change to a fixed currency, anchored on the price of some commodity (doesn't have to be gold) because that (a that is) will cause continued ass-inflation otherwise (no one wants balloon bums). |
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c) You then have to throw up some serious import tax barriers or local industry is undercut by all those with cheaper labour (& everyone ends up unemployed). |
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Under those conditions, this might have a chance to work without causing rather a lot of deaths (if healthcare is included), not to mention riots & the eventual overthrow of the government. |
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Which if you stuck to it regardless of the effect it was having on 80% of your population is I predict the probable outcome in most developed nations where living standards expectations for the masses have become a little higher than the United Arab Emirates say? |
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damn - I promised not to continue. |
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<anno-marked-for-deleting> |
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