from the voters-to-be-prosecuted-for-conspiracy-to-corrupt dept.
Steven I. Weiss writes in The Atlantic how game theory can shed light both on what is happening in Washington and on how the bargaining power of its negotiating parties may evolve over time and comes to the conclusion that hypocrisy is essential to the functioning of Congress - in fact it's the only tool legislators have after they've rooted out real corruption. "Legislators do not pay each other for votes, and every member of a parliament in a democratic society is legally equal to every member," writes Congressman Barney Frank in his new memoir, Frank: A Life in Politics From the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage. For legislators, cooperation is a form of political currency. They act in concert with other legislators, even at the expense of their own beliefs, in order to bank capital or settle accounts: "Because parliamentary bodies have to arrive at binding decisions on the full range of human activity in an atmosphere lacking the structure provided by either money or hierarchy, members have to find ways to bring some order out of what could be chaos," writes Frank. So trading votes, also known as logrolling, is how the business of politics is conducted. "Once you have promised another member that you will do something—vote a certain way, sponsor a particular bill, or conduct a hearing—you are committed to do it." According to Frank legislators have to act in ideologically inconsistent ways in the short run if they want to advance their larger objectives in the long run, as those larger objectives can only be achieved with teamwork. And the other members of their legislative team are only going to play ball with them if they know that they'll take one for the team, that they'll vote for something they don't like because the team needs it.
Game theory sets out conditions under which negotiating parties end up cooperating, and why they sometimes fail to do so. It does so based on analyzing what drives individuals in the majority of bargaining situations: incentives, access to information, initial power conditions, the extent of mutual trust, and accountability enforcement. Instead of seeing political flip-flopping as a necessary evil, Frank suggests it is inherent to democracy and according to Frank if there's any blame to be doled out in connection with political hypocrisy, it's to be placed on the heads of voters who criticize legislators for it, instead of accepting it as a necessary part of democratic politics. "Legislators who accommodate voter sentiment are denounced as cowardly, and those who defy it are just as fiercely accused of rejecting democratic norms," writes Frank. "I will run for office and I will tell you what I think, and then I will go ahead and do what I think right, and if you don't like what I'm doing, then you can kick me out."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @07:23AM
That's what it is.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Kell on Monday July 13 2015, @07:28AM
I always thought that hypocrisy was simply a subset of a larger corruption. Stated policy is a tacit agreement with the voters: "Vote for me and I will act this way". When the politician breaks that agreement, he or she clearly signals that they no longer care about the voters' desires and is instead acting in their own self-interest.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday July 13 2015, @12:38PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tramii on Monday July 13 2015, @03:35PM
Then maybe don't promise X and Y if you can't deliver X and Y.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday July 14 2015, @08:13AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Tuesday July 14 2015, @04:04PM
If you don't promise things that you're not 100% sure that you'll achieve, then you can't promise anything.
I can promise to not cheat on my wife. I cannot promise we will never get divorced. I can promise to do my best to protect my children. I cannot promise that no harm will ever come to them.
There are certain things you can guarantee and certain things you cannot. You should not make guarantees about things you have no control over. Instead of saying things like "If elected I will change X" you should instead say "If elected I will work hard to change X by doing the following things..." Then you can list the prerequisites that are necessary for that change. Maybe you will draft a bill or maybe you will promise to vote a certain way. But *stop* saying you will do X when you can't guarantee to do X.
Shame on them for lying to us and shame on us for not holding them accountable for their lies.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday July 14 2015, @04:12PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @12:46PM
Not necessarily. Is being honest with your children except in cases where the truth would be traumatic acting in your own self-interest or being a good parent?
It could be that many politicians are not acting in self-interest through hypocrisy. They could care for their constituents but simply look down on them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @05:34PM
Most of the time, in fact almost all of the time, politicians hide things from the public it's either to avoid embarrassment or it's for some other self serving purpose. Take, for example, the secretive meetings between politicians and industry interests. I suppose one could argue that the truth behind these secretive agreements and how self serving they are is so traumatic that they would rather keep it away from the public. The truth behind how corrupt government is and how bought and paid for politicians and regulators are is so traumatic it's best to just keep it secret. If the truth is really that traumatic that's even more reason the public should know about it and any attempts to hide it are only self serving.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday July 13 2015, @08:06AM
You say: "Rationalization of hypocrisy and sociopathy". Somebody explained it better about 150 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Informative) by theluggage on Monday July 13 2015, @09:05AM
You missed one:
“To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
―
Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 13 2015, @11:17AM
You know what? Keep election for the legislative but replace the nomination of executives by a random choice.
Greeks had done so some time in the past [wikipedia.org] ... and today they've been granted the bailout, so... maybe it works?
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by Niggle on Monday July 13 2015, @01:12PM
To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
-Also Douglas Adams
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @05:17PM
"Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made."
---
John Godfrey Saxe, The Daily Cleveland Herald, Mar. 29, 1869
This is worth a rebuttal -- here is my one data point:
A few years ago I went on a tour of a small sausage plant. Our small group had lunch before and several ordered sausages--commenting that this might be the last time to enjoy one (before seeing how they were made).
The plant was spotless. Among other things, they only accept meat into the plant that has already been separated from bone, the bones are often the source of bacterial infection. From talking to the workers (who all seemed friendly and open), it certainly looked like management was doing the right things for quality of product. While the work environment is moderately hostile--most of the employees have to work in rooms chilled to just above freezing--there was regular break time to get warmed back up.
After the 2 hour tour, we all agreed that we would have no problem eating anything that was packaged in that sausage and meat processing factory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @10:39AM
I'm sure that is also the case with your average plant and that the prices of this factory are surely reasonable...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @09:38PM
and representative democracy is, in some cases, a poor rationalization against a more direct democracy.
Perhaps we should elect politicians to introduce bills to the public to be voted on by the public. The burden shouldn't be on the public to get a new bill directly through via starting a petition and signing up so many people the burden should be on the politician to get any bill they want through via introducing it to the public and getting a minimal number of people to come vote on it. If, say, more than ten percent (or whatever) of the voting population comes and votes and a majority votes in favor of a bill then it should pass. If not even ten percent of the voting population can't be bothered to attend to vote on a bill then the bill is obviously not important enough to the public for consideration.
For immediate, short term, needs perhaps a solution is that we can elect a body of representatives that can pass a temporary bill. The bill can optionally be set to expire in a year or so. Within that time the representatives can then rally the population to vote on the bill directly. If a substantial quantity of voters show up and vote (both must occur) then the bill can continue on. If not then it's not that important and it should automatically be negated.
Every five or ten years after a bill does get passed by the population as a whole it should then go up to be voted on again by the population as a whole. Since the bill is already in effect it shouldn't require a minimal threshold of voters to be accepted for continuation. Continuation should be the default. However if a minimal amount of people (say ten percent) show up and it gets a two thirds majority denial rate then the bill should be rejected. If a higher minimal amount of voters show up (say twenty percent) and it only gets a 50 percent rejection majority then it should be rejected. The model should generally follow a statistical model. If we can statistically show that about 60 percent of the population, with high confidence (80% or more) no longer wants this bill to stay in effect then it should no longer stay in effect. Granted there is the fact that those that show up to vote may hold a bias but those that didn't show up are probably not that determined to keep the bill in effect, they had the same opportunity as everyone else to show up and vote and if enough people that care about an issue enough to show up to vote on it do show up such that they can skew the statistics as a whole against those that are too apathetic to show up then perhaps the determination of those that show up should be heard, and no statistical model is going to be perfect. A bill already in effect being voted on should reflect a reasonably high degree of probability that the population as a whole shares the same rejection sentiment to thwart any bias in who shows up.
In this way any immediate pressing matters, like disaster relief or whatever or immediate threats, can be dealt with quickly. Any long term bills that the population as a whole feels is important enough to get through will get through in the long term. Any long term bills that a future population strongly feels is no longer needed can easily be rejected.
Granted the corrupt ruling class and corporations that are against a more direct democracy will naturally point to potential flaws in such a system. It's not a perfect system. But it's a whole lot better than what we have now, a system that is purely bought and paid for by those same corporations that are against direct democracy. and yes, such a system will make it more difficult for certain bills to get passed. Big corporations will complain about this. Bought politicians will complain about this. How is any bill (that they want) going to ever get passed. It's the same exact argument that they use to engage in secretive meetings with politicians. If the public got involved these bills will be harder to pass. But under a direct democracy, just like under a more transparent negotiating system, bills will get passed (and bills have been passed transparently) just not the bills that big corporations want. Which is exactly the point. Attempts to rationalize away a much more direct approach to democracy are just attempts to ensure that corporations write the laws. The whole point of having a person or group of people write laws is so that a small group of interests can undemocratically dictate the laws disproportionately against what the public wants. Voting for representatives often doesn't matter since politicians can just change their minds afterwards without repercussions. Politicians know this and corporations know this which is why they push for such centralized systems of power. We need a more direct approach to democracy. Let those who want a bill passed convince the public that it should be passed more directly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @09:48PM
Rationalizations against direct democracy are just an attempt to rationalize imposing a law against me that I would never vote in favor of without giving me the opportunity to vote for said law myself. Period.
Politicians lie about what they will do when running for office and they vote for laws they never mentioned during elections.
If I didn't directly have an opportunity to vote for the laws that I'm being subject to that's oppression, not democracy, and the government has no moral right whatsoever to enforce those laws on me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2015, @12:25AM
The problem with direct democracy is that its nothing more than mob rule. There must be legal protections for the minority groups, to keep the majority from tyrannically oppressing them. I can already guess that anyone who disagrees with that is part of the majority, and most likely a sociopath to boot. Just keep in mind, if the US were a direct democracy, it would be extremely easy to repeal the first amendment and change the US into a Christian Theocracy, or repeal the fourth, fifth, and similar amendments and change the US into an openly-admitted police state rather than the 'secretive' one it is now where the majority don't realize it already is one; and those are just the most obvious example of why the majority should not have unlimited power to do whatever the fuck they want.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @07:57AM
Congress is NOT a Parliament and a President is NOT a Prime Minister. When the Executive does NOT answer to the Legislature, when the President ignores Congress and governs by Executive Order instead, you do NOT have a Democracy or even a Republic. You have a Dictatorship. Stop pretending different systems of government are interchangeable just to simplify your pet theory.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 13 2015, @11:55AM
Except that (1) the president was elected too, just like Congress, (2) is only bound to listen to Congress when a law is passed covering whatever his order was about, and (3) Executive Orders are part of his job.
Also, if you're upset about the president I think you're upset about, that particular one has issued fewer executive orders than many of his predecessors, and polls significantly higher (47% last week [gallup.com]) than Congress (17% last week [gallup.com]) which would strongly suggest that he's much closer to having the consent of the governed than Congress is.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Informative) by tathra on Monday July 13 2015, @01:02PM
looking at number of executive orders by president [ucsb.edu], by that standard, both Reagan and Dubya were far worse dictators than Obama, and we've lived in a dictatorship since Gerald Ford, with a small break only for Bush Sr.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Monday July 13 2015, @01:06PM
sorry, small correction, i meant since after Gerald Ford, but really its been a dictatorship almost non-stop since Teddie Rosevelt with Gerald Ford and Bush Sr. being the only breaks.
(Score: 1) by captain_nifty on Monday July 13 2015, @09:23PM
Check the number per year, Ford and Bush 1 look good only because they were in office for shorter periods of time, their rate of orders was about average.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Tuesday July 14 2015, @12:14AM
yeah, it was the first thing in the morning, i realized that after. if Obama is a dictator due to forcing his iron rule on the country via Executive Orders, then 34.6 EOs/year (208/6) is the threshold at which a president becomes a dictator.
Dubya - 291/8 = 36.4 EOs/year, worse dictator than Obama
Clinton - 364/8 = 45.5 EOs/year, much worse dictator than Obama
Bush 1 - 166/4 = 40.75 EOs/year, much worse dictator than Obama
Reagan - 381/8 = 47.6 EO/s year, much worse dictator than Obama
Carter - 320/4 = 80 EOs/year, significantly worse dictator than Obama
Ford - 169/4 = 42.25 EOs/year, much worse dictator than Obama
even just looking at EOs by term, Obama has the least of all modern (20-21st century) presidents. that means under that ridiculous right-wing nutjob definition, the US has been a dictatorship nonstop for almost 120 years. so why have we never heard a complaint before now? what is it about Obama that makes him different from literally every other president that makes so many people hate him so much? HMMMM, i wonder what it could be...
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday July 13 2015, @01:44PM
Executive Orders can be overturned by Congress and the Courts. Checks and balances, man.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @09:30AM
Game theory also explains why bankers try to get the better of you. Or why people defraud other people. Or a heap of other undesirable behaviours.
However that doesn't imply we should accept those things. Rather it means we should consider changing the rules of the game so that the undesirable behaviour no longer is favoured by them. After all, it's not as if those were laws of nature, or god given. The rules are made by humans, and were made with the intent to promote good behaviour. If the rules turn out not to promote good behaviour, the right thing is not to accept it as inevitable, but to ask what we can do about it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @11:46AM
No, and you don't need game theory to explain anything because they are acting in the same way that we all are supposed to act when you make compromises to come to agreement. It is a give-and-take. It is the hypocritical dipshits that need to realize that their own views are not Heaven-sent. Drawing arbitrary lines of morality and taking a no-compromise position is what leads you to inconsistencies. People like you are no different than, for instance, the "right to lifers", the "tea baggers" and others in the far right of the Republican party. It is just that YOU think your no-compromise lines are clearly drawn "right" and that only those of ill repute would take a different position.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @05:06PM
Fancy that, not having convictions or direction in life leads to never being inconsistent with convictions or direction.
In other news an upside to being a sociopath is never honestly having to say you're sorry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @06:34PM
Exactly the point. All those who don't align their views with you are sociopaths. You must be a hoot in social settings, or at least you might start to understand why you stop getting invited to those things. Strong convictions does not mean you can't compromise. In fact, it is sort of the whole point of the article. (Is "appeasement" still the dirty word to sling around?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @07:50PM
The word you're looking for there is "SJW", unlike it, sociopath actually has a definition. When people are called sociopaths, its not because they have differing views, its because they fit under the definition of the word "sociopath":
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @01:37PM
What many people even within the liberal arts fail to realize is that morality and ethics is simply game theory applied to incommensurable values.
I think game theory as it stands has less to do with an unfortunate mathematical optimum as much as irresponsible starting conditions. If you decide future conditions, people that aren't immediately adjacent to your life, or the good will of others are meaningless, then these negative affects are clearly maximizing solutions. Should banks care about the future, how they will be treated and remembered in the long term, or accept that other people matter, then predatory or otherwise misleading practices suddenly become undesirable.
This does leave a question. What is easier, forcing rules such that the numbers don't work in socially negative strategies or convincing money and power obsessed people that there is more to life than just numbers and status?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @03:04PM
Make up your mind what you want - someone to represent you or someone to lead you (careful where though ;) ).
If most of you are clueless sheeple then you are probably going to get "leaders" at best, at worst you're going be like lambs led to a slaughter.
If you want and get representatives, don't call it flip flop if your representative listens to you and so changes direction when you all grumble.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday July 13 2015, @03:33PM
E.g. In a 2-party state, the smaller party's members basically don't count - the majority party always wins. In a 4-party state, where the proportions are 28%, 26%, 24% and 22%, the 22% never get any say at all, the three major parties decide the result no matter what the 4th party does.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 13 2015, @07:03PM
I would contest your assertion in th case of a multi-party situation - in your example *any* three parties can collaborate to renderi the fourth, even the 28%ers, irrelevant. And I would suspect that most of the time you'll get shifting allegiances as different bills are considered, depending on the priorities of the different parties. Especially assuming soe of those priorities conflict, the exact percentages shift at every election, and that a certain percentage of legislators will tend to defect from the party line for one rea$on or another.
Of course parties that only have a small minority will tend to get ignored, but even they may be able to leverage small concessions in the face of a close vote where their votes may tilt the balance of an uncertain outcome.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 14 2015, @01:57PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday July 14 2015, @04:49PM
Why not exclude the 27% instead? If the other three parties block vote then 73% is just as effective as 78%. As long as power is split into a handful of relatively balanced blocks it makes more sense to form shifting alliances based on per-issue priorities. After all it's extremely unlikely that the same three independent parties will actually agree on a desirable outcome for more than a small percentage of legislation. Why spend a bunch of political capital to get Team28's support on today's bill when Team22 already wants most of the same things you do?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 15 2015, @12:35PM
If the 25 and 26 vote different ways, then whichever way the 27 votes wins. Therefore the result is not independent of which way the 27 vote.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 18 2015, @07:01AM
That's one rather contrived example, even before factoring in the fact that we're assuming unanimous voting along party lines.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Monday July 13 2015, @04:29PM
This is pretty messed up. The summary and article apparently assume that compromising with others is by definition equivalent to hypocrisy. I don't think that is a majority -- or even reasonable -- view. Just because Bush was able to snow some low-information voters in 2004 by tagging Kerry a "hypocrite" for making compromises doesn't mean it was a valid charge.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday July 13 2015, @07:17PM
I've generally heard the concept termed "horse trading", and it has nothing to do with hypocrisy. Rather it is simply born of the understanding that to get something of value, you tend to have to give something of comparable value in exchange. Ideally you would "sell" your vote on something of low priority to you in exchange for someone else's vote on something of high priority to you, but low priority to them. In practice though you'll often have to sacrifice something of high priority to you, possibly even of higher priority but less realistically achievable than what you're getting in exchange. That's not hypocrisy, that's just business, and anyone who has ever had to settle for their second- or third-choice car/house/computer/etc. so that they can still afford to eat should be familiar with the concept
Where corruption comes in is when, as is so often the case, a representative "sells" things of high priority to their constituents in exchange for things that primarily benefit them personally - either directly, or through various forms of bribery - be they explicit, or as is common in the US the promise of future campaign contributions or lucrative employment such as the "revolving door" between legislatures and large lobbyist organizations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @11:17PM
A better title for this story might be "Politicians Will Do Anything To Get Elected". Yeah, shocking, I know. Film at 11, etc.