There’s an ordinary selection mechanism for politicians, and an ordinary selection mechanism for lords of the manor.
Ideally, the ordinary selection mechanism for politicians (elections) would choose people who define success the way the voter would define success. That said, we both know that this is not how things actually work. For principal-agent delegation reasons, politicians often have their own agendas that conflict with voter preferences. The politician agenda diverges increasingly from the voter agenda as the number of voters increases (i.e. national figures generally have more freedom to pursue their own ends than county officials).
Still, politician agendas cannot completely diverge from voter preferences. Observationally, many voter preferences are implemented into law. As an extreme example, bribery is illegal even though the prohibition is bad for most politicians. So there is reason to think that the ordinary selection process for politicians leads to some connection in the definition of success (teleologically, if not cognitively).
By contrast, there is no particular reason to think the ordinary selection mechanism (inheritance) picks lords of the manor who want to implement tenant farmers preferences. Unless you include revolutionary change, which does not seem like an ordinary selection process.
Inasmuch as democracy woks, they do. In an ideal democracy, representatives are servants of the people who are fired if they don’t deliver. Diverging interests are failures, not inherent to democracy.
What do you mean by “inherent to democracy”? Certain types of failures, e.g., politicians pursuing short sighted policies because they’re not likely to be around when said policies implode, are systemic to democracies.
To a certain extent. However, the bureaucrat has no motivation to care about the welfare of the people, not even the politician’s desire to get reelected or the noble’s incentive to make his estate successful. The bureaucrat’s incentive, by contrast, is to expand his bureaucratic empire, frequently at the expense of the nation as a whole.
But it’s still long termist. None of the cogs does the work of the whole machine itself. You also need a free press, even though their motivation is to sell pieces of paper.
The politician and the voter in a democracy also don’t define “success” in the same way.
There’s an ordinary selection mechanism for politicians, and an ordinary selection mechanism for lords of the manor.
Ideally, the ordinary selection mechanism for politicians (elections) would choose people who define success the way the voter would define success. That said, we both know that this is not how things actually work. For principal-agent delegation reasons, politicians often have their own agendas that conflict with voter preferences. The politician agenda diverges increasingly from the voter agenda as the number of voters increases (i.e. national figures generally have more freedom to pursue their own ends than county officials).
Still, politician agendas cannot completely diverge from voter preferences. Observationally, many voter preferences are implemented into law. As an extreme example, bribery is illegal even though the prohibition is bad for most politicians. So there is reason to think that the ordinary selection process for politicians leads to some connection in the definition of success (teleologically, if not cognitively).
By contrast, there is no particular reason to think the ordinary selection mechanism (inheritance) picks lords of the manor who want to implement tenant farmers preferences. Unless you include revolutionary change, which does not seem like an ordinary selection process.
I think that is what I was trying to say, but you said it much better.
Inasmuch as democracy woks, they do. In an ideal democracy, representatives are servants of the people who are fired if they don’t deliver. Diverging interests are failures, not inherent to democracy.
What do you mean by “inherent to democracy”? Certain types of failures, e.g., politicians pursuing short sighted policies because they’re not likely to be around when said policies implode, are systemic to democracies.
In practice short-termism is ameliorated by life presidents, second chambers, career civil servants, etc.
To a certain extent. However, the bureaucrat has no motivation to care about the welfare of the people, not even the politician’s desire to get reelected or the noble’s incentive to make his estate successful. The bureaucrat’s incentive, by contrast, is to expand his bureaucratic empire, frequently at the expense of the nation as a whole.
But it’s still long termist. None of the cogs does the work of the whole machine itself. You also need a free press, even though their motivation is to sell pieces of paper.