It is not it’s sole function at all. It is a means by which good ideas are more readily available and open to exchange. Inhibiting the free market too much and you’ll risk inhibiting creativity and human expression.

No system is perfect. People had the chance to change the voting system in the UK and they turned it down - true enough the main parties in power seem to have done what they could to influence the public vote, but were they doing it for some common good? Who knows?

I think we would be arguing semantics. The free market is supposed to ensure the most efficient use of resources, and that happens by allocating resources to where profit is maximised.

If you would do me the honour of reading the first post of the linked thread, I think it would be easier to understand what I meant.

Political parties' interests are not aligned with voters, unless you have a formal and binding NOTA option whose choice has democratically valid consequences.

I can guarantee you that political parties do not work for the common good any more than strictly necessary, they work to consolidate their own power.

“Consolidating power”? You seriously think they only care about retaining power?

Their aim is to gain power and keep it. What else does a political party aim to do?

However, in their quest for power, they should be offering policies that benefit the public with candidates that are most effective in implementing these policies. Yet often they fail to reach that standard.

And its not just me who thinks so. Why are politicians the most despised profession, outside journalism?

In a real democracy, almost by definition, politicians would be the most respected members of society, as they would be engaged in the maximisation of the public good.

You seriously think they only care about retaining power? — I like sushi

What can a political party accomplish if it has no power? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Power is the ability to wield force (not just crude physical force). Power is the ability to silence opposition (again, not be crude force -- maybe with a cloture vote to end debate). Power is the ability to establish policy and enforce it.

How do two parties in the United States manage to maintain power if they don't represent or serve the common good? The maintain power because there are two -- only two -- parties that matter. Most of the time the two parties represent the same opinion: Democrats and Republicans must continue to monopolize politics and maintain the socio-politico-economic status quo.

they should be offering policies that benefit the public — romanv

If their raison d'être is staying in power, what difference does the public good make to them? The public be damned! (That phrase is usually put in the mouth of a utility company, but if the shoe fits...)

Ok, that's fairly cynical on my part. Some politicians actually do try to benefit the public good. Sometimes EVEN the political party in power may not only wish to further public good, they may actually do it. This desirable but aberrant behavior would probably be rewarded with the loyalty of the people who voted for that party.

You’ve got no argument here.



The UK is not the same as the US. Different system of democracy. I don’t know a great deal about the US system having never visited or lived there.

I did say “only,” which I appear to have guessed right according to romanv’s response.

Government on the state level, and then the federal level, forced communities to provide education for all children regardless of their parents' ability to pay for that education, because those who understand democracy know the importance of education that transmits a culture for making us a strong and united Republic. And they know parents may not be capable of educating their children for citizenship in a democracy. We are in crisis now because since 1958 we have not educated our young to understand democracy and the requirements of liberty and not even the teachers educated since 1958 are prepared to prepare our young for democracy. It is really stupid today to expect parents who lack the necessary education to prepare their children for citizenship.

In the book of the 1917 National Education Association Conference, it is very clear education had nothing to do with vocational training or preparing the young for jobs that required technological training. Actually, we were seriously unprepared for modern warfare because our young were not prepared to build bridges, use or repair- cars, planes, tanks or even use a typewriter, or do anything else that required education for all the technology we take for granted today. Very clearly we did not expect parents to prepare their children for citizenship, especially not immigrant parents, not even were Christian parents well versed in the Bible prepared to prepare their children for life in a democracy. Lessons for democracy come from the pagans (Greek and Roman and classics) not the Christians.

I seriously hope everyone rethinks the idea that we can rely on parents or today's teachers, to prepare the young for citizenship. If you think you are ready to prepare the young for democracy, can you list 10 principles of democracy or 5 events in history that bring us to democracy? I will be surprised if you are not as angry with me as everyone else is when I ask them to list the principles of democracy. Like Socrates, I tend to piss people off, but if we do not realize the error of thinking parents and not schools hold the responsibility of preparing our young for citizenship, our democracy will fail and indeed appears to have all the symptoms of failure now.

"If their raison d'être is staying in power, what difference does the public good make to them? The public be damned!"

:strong: Absolutely! President Carter was right about our need to conserve oil and Reagan lied to us about us having plenty of oil and not needing to conserve it, but Reagan won the election and he became one of our favorite presidents despite the fact that his term resulted in a huge shift of money and power that is not in the best interest of citizens. He slashed domestic budgets when an economic recession meant a very high unemployment rate and the young could not be assimilated because there were no jobs for them. In this time of great need, we cut two parent families off welfare forcing young fathers to abandon their families so their families could get help and this prevented young people from marrying, causing a surge in unwed mothers. We threw our young and poor overboard and pour all our national resources into a military buildup because our abundance of oil depended on control of mid east and ever since then we have been taxed to maintain a war ready state and despite the high taxes our national debt continues to spin out of control because of the military spending.

Today Trump wants us to know we need to accept lower wages so we are competitive on the world market, and he wants to cut all domestic programs. He will do anything to sell weapons to boost our economy. Like arming Saudi Arabia is in the world's best interest? People who think decisions have been made in our favor might need to rethink our reality. Supporting the Military Industrial Complex is not what our democracy used to be about. The MIlitary Industrial Complex doesn't so much need our sons and daughters, but this high tech military force needs our tax dollars, and we must have control of global oil because all industrial economies depend on oil and he who controls oil controls the world.

You raise some very interesting points. I hope you don't mind that I drag the discussion back to my particular bugbear: having a 'real democracy'.

For me, everything starts and ends there. Others may not see it that way, but its the way I envision the world. The root of all evil is being ruled, as rulers don't have to endure the consequences of their decisions. The solution is self governance, as we all have to live with the consequences of our choices.

My assertion, and it is no more than an assertion, but much of what have said echoes my own thoughts, is that education that is imparted by public schools today, do not prepare citizens for democracy. The reason for that is we don't have one, they prepare students for being ruled by an elite that 'knows better'.

Weak and powerless drones who don't question authority and don't learn to think for themselves. To turn, what I hope is a pithy phrase, political correctness, which is what is elevated in schools now, makes the trivial, important, and the important, racist.

The way to steer education back on track is by ensuring that citizens have self governance to the fullest extent possible, once that happens educational standards will change, as they have to, to ensure citizens are prepared to have real power in their hands. That requires moving away from political correctness, as its main function is to shut down discussion on anything the elite ruling class don't want questioned, or serve as a distraction from real issues, to concentrate on imparting the skills to think for yourself and helping young people find their path in life.

If by democratic you mean the condition of a system in which the actual state of affairs is decided fundamentally by a certain number of people among whom the power of decision is decentralized, I think market is, essentially, democratic; but it might not be in so many cases. In fact, the proper allocation of resources, as Romanv wrote,

that happens by allocating resources to where profit is maximised. — romanv

, is guided by the largest amount of profit one can get. In microeconomic theory, profit is concerned to the distance between price level given by market and the average total cost; markets, or simply places where profit is high will "attract" resources if just there is still profit in the long run. Since profit, as I said, is concerned to the price of a good, and given that the price is determined by market, seeking profit is to allocate resources in those places in which people are willing to pay more (because they need it more, maybe) for that specific good. However, there are cases of natural monopoly, oligopoly and other state of affairs which economists call "market failures"; in fact there is also the discussion whether market failures are consequences of a natural process of market, whether market tends to be centralized instead of remaining decentralized.