I think you need a third category in your list: Scope of government. You mention "The typical citizen does not have the time to study each issue, compare the views of various experts, and vote in an informed way on individual laws and regulations." A big part of the problem there is that there are so many of "each issue" to study. When everyone needs to be involved in every decision because government is unlimited in scope this problem becomes insurmountable; when government is extremely limited in scope the amount voters have to know and study shrinks a great deal.
Most commentators including Yarvin and Williams seem to implicitly assume a modern unlimited form of government that can make decisions on any matter they choose. That seems to be a great mistake, ignoring one of the primary sources of the problem they hope to solve.
Agreed. Vox (I know, I know) ran a piece yesterday about how halting USAID spending will 'cause people to literally die.' It was implicit that everything USAID did was good and virtuous and anyone who hindered their noble mission was an impediment to the good.
My knee-jerk to this piece was to ask what impediments exist to answering Arnold's questions. With (1) it seems there is no shortage of experts/expertise, yet there remains a dearth of wisdom. I would suggest that we are living at the intersection of Lasch's 'Culture of Narcissism' and Ellul's 'The Technological Society.' Credentialism is an obvious product of this fusion. Credentialism is analogous to conformity. Conformity is contra wisdom. If the experts (and leaders) are mostly ego and technique, it won't matter much how (2) political power is allocated.
The new administration is attempting to halt certain recently-created subsidies from the Department of Education to school districts to pay for 'free' breakfast and lunch for either 'poor' or, in many cases, all students.
In the DC area, online (unofficial) commentary from employees and parents among several large school districts in some of the richest counties in the country - indeed, some of the richest places in the world and in all of kid-feeding human history - responded to the attempt with claims that kids would literally go hungry - and they meant real hunger now - and some would be malnourished to the point of medical risk (though of course there are few stronger correlations in current American epidemiology than the inverse one between household income and obesity, which has been the case for decades now.)
Of course people made the points that - even if one is more redistributionist than "Families should feed their own kids" - then one could at least admit that a quarter of the way into the 21st century, "-Fairfax- can surely feed its own kids." That while a case could be made for a federal role in subsidizing the poorest areas, there wasn't any justification to redistribute money to the richest areas. And that, since governments, school districts, and individuals all over America spend lots of money on things -much- less important than "preventing kids from starving to death", and they all care about kids more than Trump, that, should the federal spigot run dry, it might just be reasonable to expect locals to adjust their taxes and budgets and reprioritize expenditures to deal with the coming child famine.
The people who made these points got the whole hornets' nest treatment, downvoted into oblivion, reported to the mods, and I suspect many were booted off the boards entirely for expressing such outrageously hateful sentiments.
And if someone were to say that foreign countries might also have just a little slack to reallocate expenditures to prevent the mass-death of their own people should the flow of a particular kind of charity were to diminish slightly, well, while obviously true, the reaction is even worse.
It’s an interesting question about why credentialism spirals out of control. I wonder if it isn’t analogous to how ratings for securities went nuts, largely because it wasn’t the securities vendors who were looking for proof their stuff was good but securities purchasers who were looking for whatever is labeled good but is cheap. Ie not good for a function other than checking a box.
Don't forget regulatory capture for the incumbents also highly contributes to credentialism as well as ego, hint hint PhD's or people with protected industries (medical doctors, lawyers, etc). But yeah at the corporate level, it's all about liability, i.e. to use an old IT saying "Nobody gets fired for buying Microsoft or Cisco" when asked why organization keep buying known inferior products. ISO compliance, outside audits (per SOX), etc. are all about box checking as generally organizations know their problems, you don't need someone on that outside to tell you your management is trash, you have any polices and what little you have, you don't follow, etc. What you need is a rubber stamp that tells your customers "we pass the low bar of hiring someone to tell you what you want to hear" ergo credentialism.
Yes! The more government does, the more it exceeds the core arena which actually require collective decisions and which most people care about. When it decides that barbers need a year of full time education and government permits to cut hair for a living, very few people have any idea why, and there's no practical way to even voice opinions on such mundane matters. Building codes would be better enforced by banks not lending to substandard construction and insurance companies not covering them. The list of collective overreach is endless, and it's that consolidation of power which attracts the corruption and cronies.
I agree the scope needs cut but I'd argue the parts needed still leaves way to much for even the most knowledgeable to fully grasp, much less the average Joe.
I think the founders were far more interested in controlling and channeling political power than in optimal policymaking. Indeed, the separation of powers itself trades off efficiency in exchange for diffusing power. If the nation is a garden, they saw the government, and the federal government in particular, as being more akin to the wall around the garden rather than the gardener. But if you think the government is the gardener, then of course you’d want to optimize for policymaking.
The problem is that there in no such thing as objectively 'optimizing' for policy, because optimization can only be analyzed by reference to a particular frame of values, intersrs, and preferences. And common ground between many on those bases never exists, not just in weighting and relative balance, but in the sense that values often oppose each other and individuals often rival interests. The founders didn't decentralized power by geography and branch for optimization, they did it to prevent anything from happening at the federal level without broad consensus in which a bare majority could just roll over the the minority effortlessly, but would be forced to engage in protracted negotiations to buy the opposition off with compromises and goodies for them too. That's more like "filtering" for positive sum arrangements than it is "optimizing".
The separation of powers among the three branches and between state and national governments was probably a good idea back when governments had so little power. But once governments become powerful, their common interests bind them together more often than individual interests have them counteracting each other.
One of my fantasies is allowing any citizen to challenge every government action, especially legislation and regulations, by paying for a random jury. Isolate jurors in individual rooms with the law or regulation in question, a pad of paper, a pen (nothing erasable), a dictionary, and maybe technical references. They would write down what they think the law or regulation does, whether they think it is constitutional, and if more than 1 or 2 disagree, throw out the law or regulation. Keep all their notes too, so if any later court action wants to know what the law or regulation means, those notes have the final say. The jurors' notes are not subject to appeal. The jurors don't get law libraries, law clerks, amicus briefs, or any other "assistance".
Whether it would actually help is another matter. But there needs to be some way for citizen outsiders to be the ultimate checks and balances against government bureaucrats.
TBH I think criminal juries should do the same including what they believe the maximum sentence and what they think the crime the defendant was actually charged with was including it's elements. And I think both those should act as the ceiling, i.e. the sentence can't be longer, even if statute authorizes, nor can additional elements, charges, etc be added to the charge. The law needs to get back to the concept that words mean what we think they mean and should be understandable by the people without an interrupter because we don't have them on the speed dial for free daily as we attempt to navigate our lives. I've always found it ludicrous ignorance of the law is no excuse because public notice was given and yet we refuse to acknowledge that public notice was written in a incomprehensible foreign language as opposed to the the linga franca of the community that has to follow it.
In theory what you say makes some sense but I think it misses the bigger problem. Congress purposely creates vague law expecting the executive branch to fill in the details. Would it be better if Congress included all the details in the law? IDK.
Good question, caught me by surprise, mostly because I thought it up for my Chartertopia, which has an entirely different political and judicial system.
But I don't think that's a problem, since both legislation and regulations are subject to the same process. If this jury writes up what they think the enabling legislation does, no matter how vague, the regulations have to comply with their analysis, in addition to the courts and text itself, and anyone can fire up more juries to judge each new regulation.
Implementing such a system has its own pitfalls. Who selects those 12 random competent adults? Who compares the 12 different analyses to say whether they are substantially the same? Do they all have to agree, or can 1 or 2 disagree while still allowing the other 10 or 11 to agree and have final say?
But I like the general idea of citizens having the final say, with no appeal to the government courts.
Besides the issues related to lobbyists, interest groups, and buying votes - all of which your idea might help with - that still leaves the question of expertise. I think it's pretty clear Congressmen don't have adequate expertise to understand many of the laws they pass. You are asking Joe Citizen to explain those bills better than Congress does. Paint me skeptical.
One modification could be that technical bills could limit jurors to those with enough general technical knowledge. Legislation should never be so technical and complicated that ordinary people can't understand it. If a railroad cargo regulation bill can't explain what it does, or if regulations implementing a physics collider can't explain its purpose and limitations, then it's not properly written. Most civilians understand very little about how cars work, but you can explain ABS in 30 seconds.
The primary purpose is to get rid of excuses like "We had to pass 2700 pages of Obamacare legislation to know what was in it." There's no need for such an abomination. Health care insurance is not 2700 pages complicated. Make them break such nonsense into multiple small bills and keep the jargon to a minimum.
Go to the last entry and ask yourself, why are there 14 different names for applicable businesses, why is it only for "food, fuel, services, or accommodations", why not for general theft, why not for crimes in general? (It's a law making dine-n-dash a separate crime).
Political rights (voting, etc.) should be tied to responsibilities (paying taxes, military service, land ownership). As they always were historically. I think this would solve a lot of the problem.
Depends what problem you are wanting to solve; history as numerous examples often leading to revolution of landowners going crazy and tenants overthrowing the government and hanging them all, i.e. I forget who said it but (paraphrasing) ultimately the proper goal of government isn't efficiency, quality, wisdom, etc but to keep social unrest down even to the point of mediocrity so we can all go about our lives with everything else being second to that and not disenfranchising people goes a long way towards that. Something along the lines of Jared Diamond's (or whoever) "All civilizations are three meals away from total collapse".
Also if you think home owners associations are great model of effective governance who provide for the efficient welfare of it citizens (residents), especially in properties that are 80%+ rent occupied, I got some land in Florida to sell you as renters don't get to vote and yet bare nearly all the costs of that rule making as it's all passed on to them.
George Washington said: “Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government,” and “Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people.”
Benjamin Franklin said: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.”
James Madison stated: “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”
Thomas Jefferson wrote, “No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and … their minds are to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and to be deterred from those of vice … These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order of government.”
Samuel Adams said: “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue.”
Patrick Henry stated that: “A vitiated [impure] state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom.”
John Adams stated: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
I used to be positive about that. I still think it would be good. But I also think all it would really do is encourage more vote swapping in Congress -- you vote for my bill, I'll vote for yours. It might slow down the more contentious legislation, but routine spending would go on as always.
Dan writes: "for democracy to “work” as a form of government, it seems that ordinary citizens must be capable of constructing accurate pseudo-environments. It must be possible for public opinion to track those features of reality relevant to making good decisions."
As he notes (& reiterates, and explains again), even the experts don't know, based on the psuedo-environments in their heads not being consistent with reality.
Democracy "works" when the people can throw the bums out, and replace the govt which is "not working" (good enough). Are the results good enough to vote for more, or so bad to vote for change -- or are you happy enough with your political tribe to stay with it?
Most of the need for accurate pseudo-environments is not really needed for ordinary citizens, but rather for the political consultants & pundits & those suggesting policies based on theory like so many academics. (Like Dan & Arnold, both overly critical of Trump relative to Biden/ Harris/ HR Clinton)
It's pretty clear, in results, that most such experts have an INaccurate pseudo-environment in their heads. When I read Dan, what he says mostly seems so correct in general, and usually also in particular, yet he avoids noting his own bias against Trump.
The Biden-Harris-Obama Democrat policies have been so bad, most non-committed (/independent?) voters voted against them. But DJT has been so successfully demonized by the academy & media, many independents voted against him. And in all 3 Trump elections, most Reps voted for him, most Dems voted against.
Voting for the Party one believes will be less bad.
The non-legal 2 party system works better than the Party list multi-party parliamentary elections in most EU & other democracies.
Term limits work to reduce power of the President. They would also work for Congress, the Senate, and even the Supreme Court (10, 12, 18 my suggestion), but especially good in reducing the power of bureaucracies. 8 year limited term contracts for Fed employees would be an excellent way to balance the need for expertise with reduction in concentration of power / gaming the system so as to increase the power of the bureaucrats.
I’m not disagreeing here. But I would point out that the relatively small costs of voting we have in place (getting off the couch and driving to a polling place) successfully screen out something like half the voting age population. So our current system already selects for the more interested and/or civic-minded members of society on average. (There are some who refuse to vote on high principle, but they are tiny in number.)
The easy answer is well-known: a benevolent dictator. A Good King.
But always two problems: 1) the Good might change to bad, and 2) how is the succession done.
Xi, in China, seems to want to emulate Lee Kuan Yew (often re-elected?), but has become increasingly non-benevolent. Altho his anti-corruption crackdown seems popular, as well helping him eliminate rivals. He does do some good stuff, but there seems no check on any bad stuff, either.
I think another way to put it is that the succession problem is the primary problem. “A good outcome” is largely about creating a stable system of succession. Actually governing well in the short run is dominated by the fact that all good works can quickly be undone.
Id go so far as to say that in the short run, one of the key things that makes good government good is the extent to which it promotes stable succession
Regarding the two separate questions, maybe you are right to pillory what Yarvin and Williams believe but instead question different than what you are attacking. The way I read it, the first question implicitly includes question two. You can reach the wisest decisions only by doing well at allocating political power
People tend to have some pretty rose colored glasses about Carter and confuse his post-presidency work with his presidency. Carter spent his entire four year presidency railing against Congress, refusing to take their phone calls, personally insulting them openly and in public, and generally being a big baby of "my way or the highway". It's why his administration basically couldn't accomplish anything of import the entire four years, his ego.
That might fly for people like Trump or FDR but Carter had no popular support either to kowtow Congress, he was just a bump on a log to most Americans.
It doesn't counter what you say about his relations with others but this piece lists some of his successes. I knew most of it but not the complete list of what he deregulated.
Most Presidents can do a lot, usually good, by doing a version of what the other party wants. Reagan gets a lot of deregulation credit for stuff he & Reps wanted, but actually happened under Carter—despite many Dems not liking deregulation.
Trump45 should have got more credit from Dems for his big spending, but they can’t seem to give him much credit for anything (a bit like Arnold & Dan). I think it’s important to, and good, to say what good things the other side did.
I’ve seen many Good Carter lists, but few focus on his terrible control-freak micromanagement. Like writing the rules for the WH pool.
I think Trump's very best accomplishment was Warp Speed and it's something Dems should have praised but they are more likely to label him anti-vax than give him credit for that.
I think the Founders thought, not unreasonably, that they were the "best" and ablest men in the nascent country. One need not agree with this statement, as obviously the left over far longer than, and the modern liberal over *most of* my life, have not been inclined to agree. The truth value of the statement is not really important. What's indisputable is that they thought they were designing a country for men like themselves, that would look something like the country they lived in (cities you could walk out of, yeoman farmers ...). As that (very extremely) didn't turn out to be the case, I don't think we can really blame them for the shortcomings of our modern political moment. I would say a new plan was needed, but I am with Christopher Caldwell in believing that a new plan has been in place for quite some time.
Kling’s engagement with Williams over the last year or so has been well worth following. One is tempted to suspect that this engagement has even influenced an evolution in William’s thinking. For this reader, pondering the engagement produces many questions. Perhaps more as notes to self, I’ll leave some random questions and comments here and pointers to other thinkers that might offer illumination.
Regarding “Williams sees no solution,” perhaps that is the right answer? I am much reminded of Mrs. J.R. Green’s classic and essential Town Life in the Fifteenth Century (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50392 ):
“There is nothing in England to-day with which we can compare the life of a fully enfranchised borough of the fifteenth century. Even the revival of our local institutions and our municipal ambition has scarcely stirred any memory of the great tradition of the past, of the large liberties, the high dignities and privileges which our towns claimed in days when the borough was in fact a free self-governing community, a state within the state, boasting of rights derived from immemorial custom and of later privileges assured by law.
The town of those earlier days in fact governed itself after the fashion of a little principality. Within the bounds which the mayor and citizens defined with perpetual insistence in their formal perambulation year after year it carried on its isolated self-dependent life. The inhabitants defended their own territory, built and maintained their walls and towers, armed their own soldiers, trained them for service, and held reviews of their forces at appointed times. They elected their own rulers and officials in whatever way they themselves chose to adopt, and distributed among officers and councillors just such powers of legislation and administration as seemed good in their eyes. They drew up formal constitutions for the government of the community, and as time brought new problems and responsibilities, made and re-made and revised again their ordinances with restless and fertile ingenuity, till they had made of their constitution a various medley of fundamental doctrines and general precepts and particular rules…"
Yes, impossible as it may be to believe, relatively small groups of the ignorant masses ruled themselves independently and successfully for centuries, adapting, evolving, revising, and meeting new challenges by exercise of their collective autonomy. Of course in hind sight, it is easy to see where this town or that town went astray and adopted a non-optimal policy, or many perhaps, but in general it was good enough for as long as it lasted.
Today, such non-optimality is deemed unacceptable and is this perhaps the root cause of the current establishment addiction to what Helen Dale and Lorenzo Warby have described as “dominion capital.” (https://www.notonyourteam.co.uk/p/dominion-capital-ii )?
“Dominion capital operates not merely to boost its possessors’ authority, but to deny authority to others, so as to create a relationship of domination. The pattern is to deny epistemic authority: you are naive/ignorant/stupid and then to deny moral authority—you are evil/maleficent/bigoted/complicit in oppression. If this doesn’t work, there’s a move to deny psychological authority—you are deluded/paranoid/a conspiracy theorist. It’s very much an attack on the concept and authority of citizenship.
Those who fail to adhere to the coordinating precepts are dishonoured. Hence fondness for the rhetoric of moral character destruction: racist, transphobe, homophobe, Islamophobe, misogynist, etc. All can be bracketed together as deplorables.
The possessors of dominion capital know how things ‘really’ work, so they have epistemic authority. They are committed to correct, morally urgent, politics, so have moral authority. Indeed, part of having dominion capital is owning morality. They see things clearly, so have psychological authority by being Serious People.
These are all patterns of exclusion through inflation of expertise.“
Of course we are told that everything is much too complicated now for the ignorant masses to do anything other than stand in line for their nutrition consumption allotment permit allowing them to queue for access to the communal feeding tube dispensing their daily AI-diet determined food pellet. Or access to a 1970’s medical therapy. Global warming, the farting crisis, Wickard v. Filburn….all too terribly complex and scientific for anybody here to do anything but meekly accept the science handed down by our betters. But perhaps this is truly what the ignorant masses are content to submit to?
Robert A. Nisbet observed:
“I believe it was Napoleon who first sensed the ease with which, in modern society, the illusion of freedom can be created by strategic relaxation of regulations and law on individual thought, provided it is only individual, while all the time fundamental economic and political liberties are being circumscribed. The barriers to the kind of power Napoleon wielded as emperor are not individual rights so much as the kinds of rights associated with autonomy of local community, voluntary association, political party. These are the real measure of the degree to which central political power is limited in a society. Neither centralization nor bureaucratized collectivism can thrive as long as there is a substantial body of local authorities to check them.”
Perhaps “democracy” really needs to be operationally defined? Perhaps there are an infinite number of variations on participative political forms and optimality really isn’t an option?
Nisbet again:
“We need a laissez faire that will hold fast to the ends of autonomy and freedom of choice; one that will begin not with the imaginary, abstract individual but with the personalities of human beings as they are actually given to us in association. ... To create the conditions within which autonomous individuals could prosper, could be emancipated from the binding ties of kinship, class, and community, was the objective of the older laissez faire. To create conditions within which autonomous groups may prosper must be, I believe, the prime objective of the new laissez faire. ...
What we need at the present time is the knowledge and administrative skill to create a laissez faire in which the basic unit will be the social group. The liberal values of autonomy and freedom of personal choice are indispensable to a genuinely free society, but we shall achieve and maintain these only by vesting them in the conditions in which liberal democracy will thrive—diversity of culture, plurality of association, and division of authority.”
But doesn’t that sound even more abstract, intangible, and divorced from reality?
Let’s return to Mrs. Green:
“"The comfortable independence in which the townspeople of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had stoutly entrenched themselves, was the reward of a couple of centuries of persistent effort, in which they had steadily laboured at their double work of emancipation, freeing themselves on the one hand from the feudal yoke, and on the other from political servitude. No independent life of the community could arise so long as the inhabitants of a town acknowledged an absolute subjection to their feudal lord, and bore the heavy burdens of services and taxes which, however they might differ according to the usages of the several manors, weighed upon the people everywhere with persistent and intolerable force. The lord might destroy their industry by suddenly calling out the inhabitants to follow him in a warlike expedition, or demanding services of forced labour or laying on them grievous taxes; his officers could throw the artizan or merchant into his prison, or ruin them by fines, or force upon them methods of law hateful and dangerous to their conceptions of a common life; as he claimed supreme rights over the soil it was impossible for the burgher to leave his property by will; and on the tenant’s death officers visited his house and stables and granaries to seize the most valuable goods as the lord’s relief. It was necessary to gain his consent before any new member could be admitted into the fellowship of citizens; and without his permission no inhabitant might leave the borough to carry on his trade elsewhere. He could forbid the marriage of children arranged by the fathers, or refuse to allow a widow to take a new husband and so make him master of her house and freeman in her town. He fixed the market laws and the market tolls. He forced the people to grind at his mill and bake at his oven.
Perhaps feudalism is a cyclic form of social organization and a means of meaningful resistance by the ignorant masses absolutely essential to human flourishing? Perhaps Otto von Bismarck wasn’t completely stupid in offering up his community rated national health insurance scheme as an alternative to socialism?
Quentin Skinner has a new book out that I suspect will provide vital insights into these conundrums. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/liberty-as-independence/3309A4BD2E0FDC722DF8CEDC05C7E0A2 Skinner once observed “the concepts of libertas and libertà came to be employed ‘almost as technical terms of Florentine politics and diplomacy’ in the course of the fourteenth century, and that they were almost invariably used in order to express the same ideas of independence and self-government.” Don't independence and self-government count?
In the great tradition of our past, every borough used to have its own pair of big, beautiful local department stores. They were full of wonders, and staffed by locals who made the decisions. Boston had Jordan Marsh and Filenes, New York had Macy's and Gimbels. The Twin Cities had Dayton's and Donaldson's. Now everything is Macy's.
Anybody got any ideas for your third bullet ("There is minimal incentive to concentrate power. Individual liberty and local decision-making authority are preserved.")? I'm all ears. Sadly, it feels like an intractable problem.
“The Presidency was expected to be contested in the electoral college, and the founders thought that frequently it would be deadlocked there and settled in the House of Representatives.” Once again Arnold Kling has brought light to my darkness. I did not know this. Thank you. Folks, why are we not talking more about this? Is it because the design is poor? Their hypothesis did not work in practice? When did the founders realize this? What discussion has already taken place around this issue? Most importantly, how can we improve our government?
Also, let’s start talking more about this: “Senators were chosen by state legislatures.” Should we go back to this way of choosing senators? Please give reasons for and against here and at your personal substacks, podcasts, books, homes, etc.
I see this sentiment a lot but it seems to me it's a retconn to claim our current system is 'broken' and thus should be changed. It's hard to believe the Founders didn't anticipate the rise of political parties since they spoke about avoiding factions (which I think they viewed as something entirely different). They were well aware of the competing interests of the large vs small states, free vs slave-holding, urban vs rural, etc. The system of government they designed was almost explicitly formed to balance these competing interests into compromises at various levels. Within a couple of decades after the ratification Presidential elections assumed their current form (President and Vice-President on the same ticket, electors chosen by popular vote in each state). The 12th Amendment is pretty good proof they weren't hesitant to change the Constitution but they didn't see a reason to step in and make changes that would make Presidential elections explicitly less democratic in the way proposed by the claim they expected regular deadlocks in the EC. Since the House elects the President but the Senate elects the VP per the 12th Amendment, regularly throwing the election to the House and/or Senate would also potentially defeat the whole purpose of running the VP on the same ticket as the President instead of being the EC runner-up. It seems odd they would put forth a Constitutional Amendment to change that, and implicitly endorse the idea that both should be held by the same party, but then expect it could regularly happen anyway.
I don't get why those alternatives would be better.
I suppose it would avoid closed primaries, which I see creating all kinds of problems, especially a tendency for each party to select more extreme candidates.
I don't remember if it addresses this specific issue but I highly recommend listening to the Freakonomics Radio episode(s) on duopolies. I'm pretty sure they have something on rank choice voting too. Again, I don't remember if that is in the duopoly episode or another.
I think you need a third category in your list: Scope of government. You mention "The typical citizen does not have the time to study each issue, compare the views of various experts, and vote in an informed way on individual laws and regulations." A big part of the problem there is that there are so many of "each issue" to study. When everyone needs to be involved in every decision because government is unlimited in scope this problem becomes insurmountable; when government is extremely limited in scope the amount voters have to know and study shrinks a great deal.
Most commentators including Yarvin and Williams seem to implicitly assume a modern unlimited form of government that can make decisions on any matter they choose. That seems to be a great mistake, ignoring one of the primary sources of the problem they hope to solve.
Agreed. Vox (I know, I know) ran a piece yesterday about how halting USAID spending will 'cause people to literally die.' It was implicit that everything USAID did was good and virtuous and anyone who hindered their noble mission was an impediment to the good.
My knee-jerk to this piece was to ask what impediments exist to answering Arnold's questions. With (1) it seems there is no shortage of experts/expertise, yet there remains a dearth of wisdom. I would suggest that we are living at the intersection of Lasch's 'Culture of Narcissism' and Ellul's 'The Technological Society.' Credentialism is an obvious product of this fusion. Credentialism is analogous to conformity. Conformity is contra wisdom. If the experts (and leaders) are mostly ego and technique, it won't matter much how (2) political power is allocated.
The new administration is attempting to halt certain recently-created subsidies from the Department of Education to school districts to pay for 'free' breakfast and lunch for either 'poor' or, in many cases, all students.
In the DC area, online (unofficial) commentary from employees and parents among several large school districts in some of the richest counties in the country - indeed, some of the richest places in the world and in all of kid-feeding human history - responded to the attempt with claims that kids would literally go hungry - and they meant real hunger now - and some would be malnourished to the point of medical risk (though of course there are few stronger correlations in current American epidemiology than the inverse one between household income and obesity, which has been the case for decades now.)
Of course people made the points that - even if one is more redistributionist than "Families should feed their own kids" - then one could at least admit that a quarter of the way into the 21st century, "-Fairfax- can surely feed its own kids." That while a case could be made for a federal role in subsidizing the poorest areas, there wasn't any justification to redistribute money to the richest areas. And that, since governments, school districts, and individuals all over America spend lots of money on things -much- less important than "preventing kids from starving to death", and they all care about kids more than Trump, that, should the federal spigot run dry, it might just be reasonable to expect locals to adjust their taxes and budgets and reprioritize expenditures to deal with the coming child famine.
The people who made these points got the whole hornets' nest treatment, downvoted into oblivion, reported to the mods, and I suspect many were booted off the boards entirely for expressing such outrageously hateful sentiments.
And if someone were to say that foreign countries might also have just a little slack to reallocate expenditures to prevent the mass-death of their own people should the flow of a particular kind of charity were to diminish slightly, well, while obviously true, the reaction is even worse.
It’s an interesting question about why credentialism spirals out of control. I wonder if it isn’t analogous to how ratings for securities went nuts, largely because it wasn’t the securities vendors who were looking for proof their stuff was good but securities purchasers who were looking for whatever is labeled good but is cheap. Ie not good for a function other than checking a box.
Don't forget regulatory capture for the incumbents also highly contributes to credentialism as well as ego, hint hint PhD's or people with protected industries (medical doctors, lawyers, etc). But yeah at the corporate level, it's all about liability, i.e. to use an old IT saying "Nobody gets fired for buying Microsoft or Cisco" when asked why organization keep buying known inferior products. ISO compliance, outside audits (per SOX), etc. are all about box checking as generally organizations know their problems, you don't need someone on that outside to tell you your management is trash, you have any polices and what little you have, you don't follow, etc. What you need is a rubber stamp that tells your customers "we pass the low bar of hiring someone to tell you what you want to hear" ergo credentialism.
Yes! The more government does, the more it exceeds the core arena which actually require collective decisions and which most people care about. When it decides that barbers need a year of full time education and government permits to cut hair for a living, very few people have any idea why, and there's no practical way to even voice opinions on such mundane matters. Building codes would be better enforced by banks not lending to substandard construction and insurance companies not covering them. The list of collective overreach is endless, and it's that consolidation of power which attracts the corruption and cronies.
I agree the scope needs cut but I'd argue the parts needed still leaves way to much for even the most knowledgeable to fully grasp, much less the average Joe.
I think the founders were far more interested in controlling and channeling political power than in optimal policymaking. Indeed, the separation of powers itself trades off efficiency in exchange for diffusing power. If the nation is a garden, they saw the government, and the federal government in particular, as being more akin to the wall around the garden rather than the gardener. But if you think the government is the gardener, then of course you’d want to optimize for policymaking.
The problem is that there in no such thing as objectively 'optimizing' for policy, because optimization can only be analyzed by reference to a particular frame of values, intersrs, and preferences. And common ground between many on those bases never exists, not just in weighting and relative balance, but in the sense that values often oppose each other and individuals often rival interests. The founders didn't decentralized power by geography and branch for optimization, they did it to prevent anything from happening at the federal level without broad consensus in which a bare majority could just roll over the the minority effortlessly, but would be forced to engage in protracted negotiations to buy the opposition off with compromises and goodies for them too. That's more like "filtering" for positive sum arrangements than it is "optimizing".
The separation of powers among the three branches and between state and national governments was probably a good idea back when governments had so little power. But once governments become powerful, their common interests bind them together more often than individual interests have them counteracting each other.
One of my fantasies is allowing any citizen to challenge every government action, especially legislation and regulations, by paying for a random jury. Isolate jurors in individual rooms with the law or regulation in question, a pad of paper, a pen (nothing erasable), a dictionary, and maybe technical references. They would write down what they think the law or regulation does, whether they think it is constitutional, and if more than 1 or 2 disagree, throw out the law or regulation. Keep all their notes too, so if any later court action wants to know what the law or regulation means, those notes have the final say. The jurors' notes are not subject to appeal. The jurors don't get law libraries, law clerks, amicus briefs, or any other "assistance".
Whether it would actually help is another matter. But there needs to be some way for citizen outsiders to be the ultimate checks and balances against government bureaucrats.
TBH I think criminal juries should do the same including what they believe the maximum sentence and what they think the crime the defendant was actually charged with was including it's elements. And I think both those should act as the ceiling, i.e. the sentence can't be longer, even if statute authorizes, nor can additional elements, charges, etc be added to the charge. The law needs to get back to the concept that words mean what we think they mean and should be understandable by the people without an interrupter because we don't have them on the speed dial for free daily as we attempt to navigate our lives. I've always found it ludicrous ignorance of the law is no excuse because public notice was given and yet we refuse to acknowledge that public notice was written in a incomprehensible foreign language as opposed to the the linga franca of the community that has to follow it.
In theory what you say makes some sense but I think it misses the bigger problem. Congress purposely creates vague law expecting the executive branch to fill in the details. Would it be better if Congress included all the details in the law? IDK.
Good question, caught me by surprise, mostly because I thought it up for my Chartertopia, which has an entirely different political and judicial system.
But I don't think that's a problem, since both legislation and regulations are subject to the same process. If this jury writes up what they think the enabling legislation does, no matter how vague, the regulations have to comply with their analysis, in addition to the courts and text itself, and anyone can fire up more juries to judge each new regulation.
Implementing such a system has its own pitfalls. Who selects those 12 random competent adults? Who compares the 12 different analyses to say whether they are substantially the same? Do they all have to agree, or can 1 or 2 disagree while still allowing the other 10 or 11 to agree and have final say?
But I like the general idea of citizens having the final say, with no appeal to the government courts.
Besides the issues related to lobbyists, interest groups, and buying votes - all of which your idea might help with - that still leaves the question of expertise. I think it's pretty clear Congressmen don't have adequate expertise to understand many of the laws they pass. You are asking Joe Citizen to explain those bills better than Congress does. Paint me skeptical.
One modification could be that technical bills could limit jurors to those with enough general technical knowledge. Legislation should never be so technical and complicated that ordinary people can't understand it. If a railroad cargo regulation bill can't explain what it does, or if regulations implementing a physics collider can't explain its purpose and limitations, then it's not properly written. Most civilians understand very little about how cars work, but you can explain ABS in 30 seconds.
The primary purpose is to get rid of excuses like "We had to pass 2700 pages of Obamacare legislation to know what was in it." There's no need for such an abomination. Health care insurance is not 2700 pages complicated. Make them break such nonsense into multiple small bills and keep the jargon to a minimum.
Here is what it should avoid: https://loweringthebar.net/2021/09/assorted-stupidity-147.html
Go to the last entry and ask yourself, why are there 14 different names for applicable businesses, why is it only for "food, fuel, services, or accommodations", why not for general theft, why not for crimes in general? (It's a law making dine-n-dash a separate crime).
Political rights (voting, etc.) should be tied to responsibilities (paying taxes, military service, land ownership). As they always were historically. I think this would solve a lot of the problem.
Depends what problem you are wanting to solve; history as numerous examples often leading to revolution of landowners going crazy and tenants overthrowing the government and hanging them all, i.e. I forget who said it but (paraphrasing) ultimately the proper goal of government isn't efficiency, quality, wisdom, etc but to keep social unrest down even to the point of mediocrity so we can all go about our lives with everything else being second to that and not disenfranchising people goes a long way towards that. Something along the lines of Jared Diamond's (or whoever) "All civilizations are three meals away from total collapse".
Also if you think home owners associations are great model of effective governance who provide for the efficient welfare of it citizens (residents), especially in properties that are 80%+ rent occupied, I got some land in Florida to sell you as renters don't get to vote and yet bare nearly all the costs of that rule making as it's all passed on to them.
Relevant to this conversation:
George Washington said: “Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government,” and “Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people.”
Benjamin Franklin said: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.”
James Madison stated: “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.”
Thomas Jefferson wrote, “No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and … their minds are to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and to be deterred from those of vice … These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order of government.”
Samuel Adams said: “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue.”
Patrick Henry stated that: “A vitiated [impure] state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom.”
John Adams stated: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
I think the Constitution's real error was in not requiring super-majorities for passing legislation.
I used to be positive about that. I still think it would be good. But I also think all it would really do is encourage more vote swapping in Congress -- you vote for my bill, I'll vote for yours. It might slow down the more contentious legislation, but routine spending would go on as always.
Dan writes: "for democracy to “work” as a form of government, it seems that ordinary citizens must be capable of constructing accurate pseudo-environments. It must be possible for public opinion to track those features of reality relevant to making good decisions."
As he notes (& reiterates, and explains again), even the experts don't know, based on the psuedo-environments in their heads not being consistent with reality.
Democracy "works" when the people can throw the bums out, and replace the govt which is "not working" (good enough). Are the results good enough to vote for more, or so bad to vote for change -- or are you happy enough with your political tribe to stay with it?
Most of the need for accurate pseudo-environments is not really needed for ordinary citizens, but rather for the political consultants & pundits & those suggesting policies based on theory like so many academics. (Like Dan & Arnold, both overly critical of Trump relative to Biden/ Harris/ HR Clinton)
It's pretty clear, in results, that most such experts have an INaccurate pseudo-environment in their heads. When I read Dan, what he says mostly seems so correct in general, and usually also in particular, yet he avoids noting his own bias against Trump.
The Biden-Harris-Obama Democrat policies have been so bad, most non-committed (/independent?) voters voted against them. But DJT has been so successfully demonized by the academy & media, many independents voted against him. And in all 3 Trump elections, most Reps voted for him, most Dems voted against.
Voting for the Party one believes will be less bad.
The non-legal 2 party system works better than the Party list multi-party parliamentary elections in most EU & other democracies.
Term limits work to reduce power of the President. They would also work for Congress, the Senate, and even the Supreme Court (10, 12, 18 my suggestion), but especially good in reducing the power of bureaucracies. 8 year limited term contracts for Fed employees would be an excellent way to balance the need for expertise with reduction in concentration of power / gaming the system so as to increase the power of the bureaucrats.
I’m not disagreeing here. But I would point out that the relatively small costs of voting we have in place (getting off the couch and driving to a polling place) successfully screen out something like half the voting age population. So our current system already selects for the more interested and/or civic-minded members of society on average. (There are some who refuse to vote on high principle, but they are tiny in number.)
Your point is still mostly valid but my ballots all come by mail and I vote on my couch.
3. What is the political arrangement that leads to the best outcomes.
The easy answer is well-known: a benevolent dictator. A Good King.
But always two problems: 1) the Good might change to bad, and 2) how is the succession done.
Xi, in China, seems to want to emulate Lee Kuan Yew (often re-elected?), but has become increasingly non-benevolent. Altho his anti-corruption crackdown seems popular, as well helping him eliminate rivals. He does do some good stuff, but there seems no check on any bad stuff, either.
I think another way to put it is that the succession problem is the primary problem. “A good outcome” is largely about creating a stable system of succession. Actually governing well in the short run is dominated by the fact that all good works can quickly be undone.
Id go so far as to say that in the short run, one of the key things that makes good government good is the extent to which it promotes stable succession
I didn't see where he described that either.
Regarding the two separate questions, maybe you are right to pillory what Yarvin and Williams believe but instead question different than what you are attacking. The way I read it, the first question implicitly includes question two. You can reach the wisest decisions only by doing well at allocating political power
"Within my lifetime, the only President that I can recall who was not excessively cold, self-absorbed, and manipulative was the elder George Bush,"
Carter?
People tend to have some pretty rose colored glasses about Carter and confuse his post-presidency work with his presidency. Carter spent his entire four year presidency railing against Congress, refusing to take their phone calls, personally insulting them openly and in public, and generally being a big baby of "my way or the highway". It's why his administration basically couldn't accomplish anything of import the entire four years, his ego.
That might fly for people like Trump or FDR but Carter had no popular support either to kowtow Congress, he was just a bump on a log to most Americans.
That surprises me but I don't know any better.
It doesn't counter what you say about his relations with others but this piece lists some of his successes. I knew most of it but not the complete list of what he deregulated.
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/03/1222640171/president-jimmy-carters-economic-legacy
Most Presidents can do a lot, usually good, by doing a version of what the other party wants. Reagan gets a lot of deregulation credit for stuff he & Reps wanted, but actually happened under Carter—despite many Dems not liking deregulation.
Trump45 should have got more credit from Dems for his big spending, but they can’t seem to give him much credit for anything (a bit like Arnold & Dan). I think it’s important to, and good, to say what good things the other side did.
I’ve seen many Good Carter lists, but few focus on his terrible control-freak micromanagement. Like writing the rules for the WH pool.
I think Trump's very best accomplishment was Warp Speed and it's something Dems should have praised but they are more likely to label him anti-vax than give him credit for that.
I think the Founders thought, not unreasonably, that they were the "best" and ablest men in the nascent country. One need not agree with this statement, as obviously the left over far longer than, and the modern liberal over *most of* my life, have not been inclined to agree. The truth value of the statement is not really important. What's indisputable is that they thought they were designing a country for men like themselves, that would look something like the country they lived in (cities you could walk out of, yeoman farmers ...). As that (very extremely) didn't turn out to be the case, I don't think we can really blame them for the shortcomings of our modern political moment. I would say a new plan was needed, but I am with Christopher Caldwell in believing that a new plan has been in place for quite some time.
Kling’s engagement with Williams over the last year or so has been well worth following. One is tempted to suspect that this engagement has even influenced an evolution in William’s thinking. For this reader, pondering the engagement produces many questions. Perhaps more as notes to self, I’ll leave some random questions and comments here and pointers to other thinkers that might offer illumination.
Regarding “Williams sees no solution,” perhaps that is the right answer? I am much reminded of Mrs. J.R. Green’s classic and essential Town Life in the Fifteenth Century (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50392 ):
“There is nothing in England to-day with which we can compare the life of a fully enfranchised borough of the fifteenth century. Even the revival of our local institutions and our municipal ambition has scarcely stirred any memory of the great tradition of the past, of the large liberties, the high dignities and privileges which our towns claimed in days when the borough was in fact a free self-governing community, a state within the state, boasting of rights derived from immemorial custom and of later privileges assured by law.
The town of those earlier days in fact governed itself after the fashion of a little principality. Within the bounds which the mayor and citizens defined with perpetual insistence in their formal perambulation year after year it carried on its isolated self-dependent life. The inhabitants defended their own territory, built and maintained their walls and towers, armed their own soldiers, trained them for service, and held reviews of their forces at appointed times. They elected their own rulers and officials in whatever way they themselves chose to adopt, and distributed among officers and councillors just such powers of legislation and administration as seemed good in their eyes. They drew up formal constitutions for the government of the community, and as time brought new problems and responsibilities, made and re-made and revised again their ordinances with restless and fertile ingenuity, till they had made of their constitution a various medley of fundamental doctrines and general precepts and particular rules…"
Yes, impossible as it may be to believe, relatively small groups of the ignorant masses ruled themselves independently and successfully for centuries, adapting, evolving, revising, and meeting new challenges by exercise of their collective autonomy. Of course in hind sight, it is easy to see where this town or that town went astray and adopted a non-optimal policy, or many perhaps, but in general it was good enough for as long as it lasted.
Today, such non-optimality is deemed unacceptable and is this perhaps the root cause of the current establishment addiction to what Helen Dale and Lorenzo Warby have described as “dominion capital.” (https://www.notonyourteam.co.uk/p/dominion-capital-ii )?
“Dominion capital operates not merely to boost its possessors’ authority, but to deny authority to others, so as to create a relationship of domination. The pattern is to deny epistemic authority: you are naive/ignorant/stupid and then to deny moral authority—you are evil/maleficent/bigoted/complicit in oppression. If this doesn’t work, there’s a move to deny psychological authority—you are deluded/paranoid/a conspiracy theorist. It’s very much an attack on the concept and authority of citizenship.
Those who fail to adhere to the coordinating precepts are dishonoured. Hence fondness for the rhetoric of moral character destruction: racist, transphobe, homophobe, Islamophobe, misogynist, etc. All can be bracketed together as deplorables.
The possessors of dominion capital know how things ‘really’ work, so they have epistemic authority. They are committed to correct, morally urgent, politics, so have moral authority. Indeed, part of having dominion capital is owning morality. They see things clearly, so have psychological authority by being Serious People.
These are all patterns of exclusion through inflation of expertise.“
Of course we are told that everything is much too complicated now for the ignorant masses to do anything other than stand in line for their nutrition consumption allotment permit allowing them to queue for access to the communal feeding tube dispensing their daily AI-diet determined food pellet. Or access to a 1970’s medical therapy. Global warming, the farting crisis, Wickard v. Filburn….all too terribly complex and scientific for anybody here to do anything but meekly accept the science handed down by our betters. But perhaps this is truly what the ignorant masses are content to submit to?
Robert A. Nisbet observed:
“I believe it was Napoleon who first sensed the ease with which, in modern society, the illusion of freedom can be created by strategic relaxation of regulations and law on individual thought, provided it is only individual, while all the time fundamental economic and political liberties are being circumscribed. The barriers to the kind of power Napoleon wielded as emperor are not individual rights so much as the kinds of rights associated with autonomy of local community, voluntary association, political party. These are the real measure of the degree to which central political power is limited in a society. Neither centralization nor bureaucratized collectivism can thrive as long as there is a substantial body of local authorities to check them.”
Perhaps “democracy” really needs to be operationally defined? Perhaps there are an infinite number of variations on participative political forms and optimality really isn’t an option?
Nisbet again:
“We need a laissez faire that will hold fast to the ends of autonomy and freedom of choice; one that will begin not with the imaginary, abstract individual but with the personalities of human beings as they are actually given to us in association. ... To create the conditions within which autonomous individuals could prosper, could be emancipated from the binding ties of kinship, class, and community, was the objective of the older laissez faire. To create conditions within which autonomous groups may prosper must be, I believe, the prime objective of the new laissez faire. ...
What we need at the present time is the knowledge and administrative skill to create a laissez faire in which the basic unit will be the social group. The liberal values of autonomy and freedom of personal choice are indispensable to a genuinely free society, but we shall achieve and maintain these only by vesting them in the conditions in which liberal democracy will thrive—diversity of culture, plurality of association, and division of authority.”
But doesn’t that sound even more abstract, intangible, and divorced from reality?
Let’s return to Mrs. Green:
“"The comfortable independence in which the townspeople of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had stoutly entrenched themselves, was the reward of a couple of centuries of persistent effort, in which they had steadily laboured at their double work of emancipation, freeing themselves on the one hand from the feudal yoke, and on the other from political servitude. No independent life of the community could arise so long as the inhabitants of a town acknowledged an absolute subjection to their feudal lord, and bore the heavy burdens of services and taxes which, however they might differ according to the usages of the several manors, weighed upon the people everywhere with persistent and intolerable force. The lord might destroy their industry by suddenly calling out the inhabitants to follow him in a warlike expedition, or demanding services of forced labour or laying on them grievous taxes; his officers could throw the artizan or merchant into his prison, or ruin them by fines, or force upon them methods of law hateful and dangerous to their conceptions of a common life; as he claimed supreme rights over the soil it was impossible for the burgher to leave his property by will; and on the tenant’s death officers visited his house and stables and granaries to seize the most valuable goods as the lord’s relief. It was necessary to gain his consent before any new member could be admitted into the fellowship of citizens; and without his permission no inhabitant might leave the borough to carry on his trade elsewhere. He could forbid the marriage of children arranged by the fathers, or refuse to allow a widow to take a new husband and so make him master of her house and freeman in her town. He fixed the market laws and the market tolls. He forced the people to grind at his mill and bake at his oven.
Sounds quite familiar and relevant, if not perfectly descriptive of current conditions. White courtesy phone for Joel Kotkin ( https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-new-road-to-serfdom/ ).
Perhaps feudalism is a cyclic form of social organization and a means of meaningful resistance by the ignorant masses absolutely essential to human flourishing? Perhaps Otto von Bismarck wasn’t completely stupid in offering up his community rated national health insurance scheme as an alternative to socialism?
Quentin Skinner has a new book out that I suspect will provide vital insights into these conundrums. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/liberty-as-independence/3309A4BD2E0FDC722DF8CEDC05C7E0A2 Skinner once observed “the concepts of libertas and libertà came to be employed ‘almost as technical terms of Florentine politics and diplomacy’ in the course of the fourteenth century, and that they were almost invariably used in order to express the same ideas of independence and self-government.” Don't independence and self-government count?
In the great tradition of our past, every borough used to have its own pair of big, beautiful local department stores. They were full of wonders, and staffed by locals who made the decisions. Boston had Jordan Marsh and Filenes, New York had Macy's and Gimbels. The Twin Cities had Dayton's and Donaldson's. Now everything is Macy's.
Anybody got any ideas for your third bullet ("There is minimal incentive to concentrate power. Individual liberty and local decision-making authority are preserved.")? I'm all ears. Sadly, it feels like an intractable problem.
“The Presidency was expected to be contested in the electoral college, and the founders thought that frequently it would be deadlocked there and settled in the House of Representatives.” Once again Arnold Kling has brought light to my darkness. I did not know this. Thank you. Folks, why are we not talking more about this? Is it because the design is poor? Their hypothesis did not work in practice? When did the founders realize this? What discussion has already taken place around this issue? Most importantly, how can we improve our government?
Also, let’s start talking more about this: “Senators were chosen by state legislatures.” Should we go back to this way of choosing senators? Please give reasons for and against here and at your personal substacks, podcasts, books, homes, etc.
I see this sentiment a lot but it seems to me it's a retconn to claim our current system is 'broken' and thus should be changed. It's hard to believe the Founders didn't anticipate the rise of political parties since they spoke about avoiding factions (which I think they viewed as something entirely different). They were well aware of the competing interests of the large vs small states, free vs slave-holding, urban vs rural, etc. The system of government they designed was almost explicitly formed to balance these competing interests into compromises at various levels. Within a couple of decades after the ratification Presidential elections assumed their current form (President and Vice-President on the same ticket, electors chosen by popular vote in each state). The 12th Amendment is pretty good proof they weren't hesitant to change the Constitution but they didn't see a reason to step in and make changes that would make Presidential elections explicitly less democratic in the way proposed by the claim they expected regular deadlocks in the EC. Since the House elects the President but the Senate elects the VP per the 12th Amendment, regularly throwing the election to the House and/or Senate would also potentially defeat the whole purpose of running the VP on the same ticket as the President instead of being the EC runner-up. It seems odd they would put forth a Constitutional Amendment to change that, and implicitly endorse the idea that both should be held by the same party, but then expect it could regularly happen anyway.
I don't get why those alternatives would be better.
I suppose it would avoid closed primaries, which I see creating all kinds of problems, especially a tendency for each party to select more extreme candidates.
I don't remember if it addresses this specific issue but I highly recommend listening to the Freakonomics Radio episode(s) on duopolies. I'm pretty sure they have something on rank choice voting too. Again, I don't remember if that is in the duopoly episode or another.
https://youtu.be/TMSKtg7MtAA?feature=shared
This is a debate about repealing the 17th amendment from a few years back. Enjoy!