Specific policy proposals are not standard cases of influencing, though, since here you’re rather accommodating some of the opponents’ views. I see it rather as an example of a (smart) compromise, though. Typically you won’t get exactly what you wanted from the start with this strategy.
You don’t get what you want with any system. People who broker compromises between different political forces usually get more of their desired political goals into public policy than people who aren’t willing to compromise or look for compromises. You started the other post with claiming that you seek to further cooperation but here you argue that cooperation is not something worth seeking.
To get back to the VAA, you discourage politicians from compromising with each other if you want that the politician makes a lot of specific promises before a election and keep them. As far as practical illustrations goes look at the current US situation with Republicans who have pledged to never raise taxes. Politicians need a certain amount of flexibility to make compromises.
The general idea that most people have about lobbying is that you identify a policy that you want to promote and then you lobby for that policy while not changing what you are lobbying for. That means that you aren’t seeking to update your own thoughts. You aren’t willing to learn that maybe the policy that you advocate actually isn’t in the best interest of the country.
Let’s say I don’t like big banks and want regulations that punish them. It’s quite easy to lobby for a transaction tax. If I learn more about the topic I will find out that this means that market makers will make profits via having a higher ask-bid spread and that pension funds and people who hold SAP500 funds will get screwed as the SAP500 means that you change your shares four times every year and would have to pay the transaction tax four times per year.
It turns out a fairly nice idea about regulating big banks that might be bailed out because they are too big to fail is to let the reserve requirement of banks rise via a continuous mathematical function as the size of the bank grows. This gives banks an incentive to be smaller instead of being big entities. If you choose the function the right way you don’t need a regulators that comes in and makes a decision to break up big banks, but they will decide on their own to split.
There are plenty of people in the left in Europe who like to punish the bad bankers and simply go for the choice of lobbying for the transaction tax instead of thinking about smarter ways to regulate.
I want to live in a country with smart regulations and want a political system that optimizes for smart policy.
Fighting where the Blue people want policy A and the Green people want policy B doesn’t leave room for rational discussion about which policies in the wide space of possible policies are smart. You are much more likely to convince other people if you are also open to change your own position when presented with good evidence.
For instance, on election day, other issues than yours might be more important.
Public policy is not made on election day. That’s simply not how modern democracy works in practice. Any approach to politics that models modern democracy that way has a huge model error.
Election day is not for choosing policies of the next term but for providing feedback about the performance of politicians in the preceding term. If widely used the current VAA design encourages people not to give feedback on actions in the preceding term but focus their mental energies on what politicians promise to do in the next term.
Given your model what of your three categories do you think I’m doing at the moment? I think (4) with Emile definition is likely the best fit.
You don’t get what you want with any system. People who broker compromises between different political forces usually get more of their desired political goals into public policy than people who aren’t willing to compromise or look for compromises. You started the other post with claiming that you seek to further cooperation but here you argue that cooperation is not something worth seeking.
To get back to the VAA, you discourage politicians from compromising with each other if you want that the politician makes a lot of specific promises before a election and keep them. As far as practical illustrations goes look at the current US situation with Republicans who have pledged to never raise taxes. Politicians need a certain amount of flexibility to make compromises.
The general idea that most people have about lobbying is that you identify a policy that you want to promote and then you lobby for that policy while not changing what you are lobbying for. That means that you aren’t seeking to update your own thoughts. You aren’t willing to learn that maybe the policy that you advocate actually isn’t in the best interest of the country.
Let’s say I don’t like big banks and want regulations that punish them. It’s quite easy to lobby for a transaction tax. If I learn more about the topic I will find out that this means that market makers will make profits via having a higher ask-bid spread and that pension funds and people who hold SAP500 funds will get screwed as the SAP500 means that you change your shares four times every year and would have to pay the transaction tax four times per year.
It turns out a fairly nice idea about regulating big banks that might be bailed out because they are too big to fail is to let the reserve requirement of banks rise via a continuous mathematical function as the size of the bank grows. This gives banks an incentive to be smaller instead of being big entities. If you choose the function the right way you don’t need a regulators that comes in and makes a decision to break up big banks, but they will decide on their own to split.
There are plenty of people in the left in Europe who like to punish the bad bankers and simply go for the choice of lobbying for the transaction tax instead of thinking about smarter ways to regulate. I want to live in a country with smart regulations and want a political system that optimizes for smart policy.
Fighting where the Blue people want policy A and the Green people want policy B doesn’t leave room for rational discussion about which policies in the wide space of possible policies are smart. You are much more likely to convince other people if you are also open to change your own position when presented with good evidence.
Public policy is not made on election day. That’s simply not how modern democracy works in practice. Any approach to politics that models modern democracy that way has a huge model error.
Election day is not for choosing policies of the next term but for providing feedback about the performance of politicians in the preceding term. If widely used the current VAA design encourages people not to give feedback on actions in the preceding term but focus their mental energies on what politicians promise to do in the next term.
Given your model what of your three categories do you think I’m doing at the moment? I think (4) with Emile definition is likely the best fit.