[EM] language/framing quibble

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

Fred Gohlke wrote:
> re: "I use the term 'selected', since elected doesn't really fit.
>      There's no public election, there's simply a whole lot of
>      mini-elections that come together."
> 
> Again, I agree.  I've been using 'elected' out of deference to the site, 
> but I vastly prefer the concept that we 'select' our leaders rather than 
> elect them.
> 
> Some weeks ago, Mr. Nesbit made the point that "... voting is the exact 
> opposite of individual rights ...".  That struck me as an astute 
> observation.  There is an immense difference between, on the one hand, 
> casting a vote for or against a person or idea proposed by others and, 
> on the other, actually influencing the choice of that person or idea 
> ourselves.  Choosing between options offered by an establishment is 
> anti-democratic.
> 
> If we are to achieve democracy, each of us must be allowed to 
> participate in the electoral process to the full extent of our desire 
> and ability.  We must be able to make selections that are meaningful to 
> us, not just endorse the choices of others.  We must be able to cast our 
> votes in a way that influences the outcome.

I think that his point was that voting is a collective decision: as
such, it counters individual rights. One example of this is Amartya
Sen's liberal paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_paradox .
Even the voting in a direct democracy (about whether to initiate a
certain course of action) would oppose individual rights, if I
understood correctly.

Nevertheless, there is some point to what you're saying. A method that
gives more choice to the voters is a good one, and this is why I think
party netural PR methods are better than list PR, and open list is
better than closed list (the latter being what we have over here). If
any person can say "here's the list of signatures, put me on the
ballot", that's much better than if you have to have a party (which can
be corrupted); and if voters can decide what order to rank the
candidates of a party in list PR, that's better than being forced to
rely on party elites doing that ordering "for them".

Those who argue in favor of closed PR here usually employ a
statesman-type argument: they say that the party elites are more suited
to choosing the ranking of the candidates because they're not prone to
populism. But if populism is a problem, deal with populism directly
through making the system more stable. Be consistent and thorough.

> re: "Given what you've said, how might the selected officials be
>      corrupted?"
> 
> I've given this matter a lot of thought.  It seems to me the risk of 
> corruption will be greater after representatives are selected than 
> during the selection process.  I'll address these situations separately, 
> but preface my remarks by noting that corruption covers a broad range of 
> activity.  It is not limited to financial transactions, but can involve 
> many other forms of pandering.  To define corruption, I'm tempted to say 
> corruption is supporting positions that are not in the public interest, 
> but it is not always possible to see precisely where the public interest 
> lies.  As you say, there are implicit and explicit forms of corruption. 
>  I will address the topic in a general sense and use the term 'bribery' 
> as a token for all forms of corruption.

The principal-agent model fits well, I think. In that model, the
representatives are "agents" employed by the "principals" that is the
people. In other words, corruption happens when the representatives do
something that benefit themselves at the expense of those they work for
(the people), in no different a fashion than if a manager of a company
took bribes to preferentially recommend or buy from a single supplier.

The direct principal-agent model fails somewhat because the
representatives may take unpopular actions that turn out to be better in
the long run, but in general, I think it's a good one, as one could
rephrase the problem the principals are asking as "govern well in the
long term".

> For these reasons, bribes will tend to be offered to achieve or prevent 
> the selection of another member of the group.  Bribing a member to 
> prevent the selection of another member is practical, but of limited 
> utility, except at the highest levels (which we will examine in a 
> moment).  That leaves bribing one member to achieve selection of another.

I'll note that bribing sufficient members in a larger group to control
the election of a majority to the next level will be much harder with
PR. The flipside of this is that bribing a member to affect a single one
of those selected to the next level would be easier. In a way, bribery
is an adversarial version of the shaving-off problem I mentioned earlier.

This also suggests that a sufficiently sophisticated attacker could
bribe some members to diminish the triad's influence, so that others
more favorable to his cause would prevail. Consider this (contrived)
situation:

      7              8
     YYN            YNN

  YYN YYN YNN   YYN YNN YNN
   1   2   3     4   5   6

An external participant may bribe council 5 to vote Y, or simply be
indecisive if he estimates the random decision would fill the triad with
an Y-majority, resulting in an Y-majority at 8. This may not be a viable
attack; I'm mostly just charting what kind of indirect corruption may be
done. In any event, it would probably be best applied at the higher
levels, since then there's enough time for the external groups to
perform the actual bribery.

> In a group of _A_, _B_, and _C_, if one member accepts a bribe to insure 
> the selection of another member, the group will have two corrupt 
> members, the one that takes the bribe and the one that accedes to 
> advancement by bribery.  If _B_ is bribed to guarantee the selection of 
> _A_, _B_ always votes for _A_, hamstringing _C_ (selection requires 2 
> votes).  If _C_ votes for _B_, _B_ can alienate _C_ to drive _C_'s vote 
> to _A_, or, if _C_ persists in voting for _B_, _B_ may court _A_'s vote 
> to advance.  Since both are corrupt, it shouldn't make much difference 
> which advances.  In any case, _C_, the only uncorrupted individual in 
> the group, can never advance.
> 
> Even so, I don't think the strategy can be pursued successfully, and 
> certainly not widely.  Whether _A_ or _B_ advances a level (we'll use 
> _A_ for convenience), they are grouped with two new people _D_ and _E_. 
>  _D_ and _E_ reached the level either by bribery or on their merits. In 
> either case, _A_ has a problem.
> 
> If _A_ (or _A_'s sponsor) propositions _D_ and _D_ is advancing by 
> bribery, either _A_ or _D_ may succeed in bribing the other, but only 
> one of the two miscreants can advance.
> 
> If _A_ propositions _D_ and _D_ advanced on merit, _D_ has just achieved 
> advancement on the strength of intellect, attitude about public concerns 
> and power of persuasion, and is filled with pride and confidence.  Under 
> those conditions, _D_ is unlikely to give up the opportunity for 
> continued advancement by taking an illegal (and demoralizing) payment. 
> Hence, _D_ is a poor target for bribery.

There's another possibility. A can say that he will support whoever
agrees to his position. The agreement would go somewhat like "If you
support my position, I'll give up my seat to you. The external group
will pay me in return, for backing out". This is a weak form of
corruption, though, because now D is out of the external group's direct
control.

It's also possible for the conspirators to corrupt a low level triad
just to deny someone who would otherwise become an obvious choice at the
higher levels, if that someone has views the conspirators don't like;
consider a level where there are two ordinary citizens and a local
Washington. The conspirators bribe the two citizens to be indecisive (or
pick one of themselves). That would be a very low level variant of the
YYN scenario above, but it would be hampered by the quick decision times
at the levels that are low enough for two of three to be sufficiently
corruptible ordinary citizens.

> Most of the ways we pursue our own interest are associated with our 
> sense of our own worth.  When we meet with others, listen to their 
> points of view, consider their concerns, discuss solutions and conduct 
> ourselves in a manner that induces them to select us to represent their 
> interests, we experience a flush of pride in ourselves and a surge in 
> our sense of self-worth.  We will not forsake those feelings lightly. 
> For that reason, the potential for using bribery as a means of 
> corrupting the selection process diminishes as the levels advance.  The 
> self-respect of those who reach the highest levels will be a significant 
> deterrent to corruption.  Bribe-taking is a characteristic of the losers 
> in our society.

I agree, in general. I think that corrupting the triad process while the
selection is going on would be very hard. I tried to determine which
cases could happen, even if those are unlikely, as the information can
only help. The randomization makes planned corruption difficult, and the
  bubbling up of good candidates makes impromptu corruption difficult as
well.

> The risk of corruption increases after the selection process is complete 
> and those we select to represent us assume positions in our government. 
>  At this point they become targets.  We will look at two aspects of this 
> problem, the influence of other members of the government and the threat 
> of external influence peddling.
> 
> Since we have a natural tendency toward partisanship, when we take our 
> seats in, say, a legislative body, we will soon align ourselves with 
> other members of the body that we find agreeable.  These relationships 
> will lead to cooperative action with others to fulfill public 
> obligations.  Individuals in a constituency may not always agree with 
> the alliances a representative forms, but, unless they can be shown to 
> be improper (perhaps by nuances too subtle for me to delineate), they 
> can not be called corrupt.  Stated another way, there is no doubt our 
> elected representatives will influence each other, but we have no basis 
> for calling such influence corruption.  In fact, I consider it healthy.

If there is to be a compromise, it couldn't happen any other way. To
reach a good compromise most of the time, the points of view of the
people must exist in the assembly. I would say, in preferring PR, "and
only be disqualified because otherwise a more common point of view would
be removed", but PR isn't just about opinions, and I'll get back to that
elsewhere.

In short: yes. One might imagine a hypothetical technical expert that 
could come up with the choice objectively, but in reality, the 
subjective and objective are so entangled it's not possible.

> The serious problem is the attack on elected officials by vested 
> interests.  In a representative democracy, representatives are not 
> required to have any special knowledge or training.  They are selected 
> because they are believed to have the intellect and disposition to 
> assimilate the information necessary to make sound decisions in the best 
> interests of the people.
> 
> Since laws passed by a legislative body apply to the community, we 
> anticipate that all interested parties will present their arguments for 
> and against pending legislation.  Our legislatures hold hearings to 
> facilitate this presentation of information.  Since the hearing rooms 
> will not hold all the people with an interest in the matter, interested 
> parties designate agents, called lobbyists, to present the information 
> for them.
> 
> The theory is that our representatives will weigh the information 
> presented by lobbyists objectively, enact laws that benefit the 
> community and reject laws that are harmful.  However, at present, it 
> doesn't work like that.  Although hearings are held, they are merely for 
> show.  The actual decisions are made by our lawmakers outside the 
> hearing room, under the influence of lobbyists.
> 
> It is the free access lobbyists have to our lawmakers that defeats a 
> very sound concept.  The lobbyists wine and dine lawmakers, provide them 
> with exotic vacations, hire members of their family, promise them future 
> employment and, by more subterfuges than I can relate, corrupt the 
> people elected to represent the public interest.  The result is the 
> cesspool we currently endure.
> 
> If we are to eliminate this kind of corruption, we must deny lobbyists 
> free access to our legislators.

There are two approaches, I think. One could either deny the corrupting 
influence in the first place, or make the system so competitive that the 
pressure to be honest is greater than that to become corrupt. I don't 
think it can be done by the latter, at least not alone, so you're right. 
Perhaps representatives should have strict limits as to what they can 
accept, so that overt bribery is weakened; this would be another kind of 
a general position against corruption, that a representative can't and 
shouldn't serve two masters (as it were). This might be difficult in the 
United States, though, because of court decisions setting spending as 
free speech (more or less; I'm not familiar with the details). The 
lobbyists and their supporters could also corrupt indirectly, but having 
only indirect corruption will at least be better than having both.

If lobbyists are used (ideally) as a shortcut to the opinions of those 
that have different positions in the community, maybe this could be 
formalized. I've already mentioned citizen assemblies (representative 
samples); those might work in some respect, but they wouldn't if the 
interests are not representative of the people; for instance, if it 
involves some very complex detail the people don't know about. (Of 
course, one should beware not to let "the people wouldn't understand" 
run rampant and turn the entire affair into something autocratic.)