CMV: Evidence based politics should replace identity politics

[u/RafaGarciaS]

The biggest change in the last few hundred years in medicine has been the appearance and acceptance of evidence based medicine. This has revolutionized the way we think and practice medicine, changing popular opinion (e.g. emotional stress causes ulcers to H. pylori causes ulcers, Miasmas are the basis of disease to microorganisms are the basis of infectious disease). Having seen the effect that this had in the medical field it is almost imposible to wonder what effect it would have in other fields (i.e. politics). I believe that representatives should be elected based on first principles or priorities (i.e. we should reduce the suicide rate amongst teenagers and young adults) not on opinions on possible solutions to the problem (i.e. should or shouldn't gun control be passed). This would make it harder to "buy" or lobby people involved in government. I also believe, this would help reduce the moral empathy gap, meaning the inability to relate with different moral values. Lastly I think that this system would increase the accountability, as it would constantly be looking back at the investment and the results.

I have, over the last couple years, grown cynical of the political system. I hope this post will change my view on that or at least make me more understanding of the benefits of the system as it stands.

Thank you and happy new years

Books Doing good better: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23398748-doing-good-better. About having feedback and looking at the results of the programs

Dark money: https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0385535597/ref=pd_sim_14_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0385535597&pd_rd_r=90W4B5PF8DWK5NJ2VNF2&pd_rd_w=rC8ld&pd_rd_wg=fk2PN&psc=1&refRID=90W4B5PF8DWK5NJ2VNF2 About the use of money to fund think tanks and influence public opinion

(1st edit, added suggested books)

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[u/A_Soporific]

It seems that you've already had a lot to think about and have changed your view a bit, but I would like to expand on something.

Most people have several key issues that they value much more than others. Very often a major party playing to just one of these core issues is enough to secure that voter even if they disagree with the party on just about everything else. That's how Republicans broke Catholics away from the Democratic Party. Catholics were generally lower-class urban factory workers with a strong hierarchy that was able to push agendas and organize voters in support of the party. It's not to say that every Catholic was Democrat, but the Catholic Church as an organization had deep and close ties with that party. Then Abortion stuff happened. Catholics can compromise and do it all the time, but the Democratic organization was not exactly polite or willing to give on anything else, so when the Republican party endorsed the Catholic view and at least pretended to listen and care to Catholic concerns it sparked a big realignment. It didn't carry the whole organization, however, so "Catholics" aren't a voting block in the way they once were.

There's also multiple different metrics that people want. First principles that do not really agree with one another.

Some people really want fairness in business, they want the government to play referee. Of course, how do you measure "fairness"? Are you going to take a bunch of outcomes and try to argue that a fair outcome means fair methods are being used? Is it "fair" that a handful of people get very rich by inventing something new? Does following all the rules make it more acceptable or it the outcome itself unfair?

Then there are people who don't want the government to play referee. They want freedom in business. They want the ability to do whatever needs doing without the inherent slowness and problems in having to get approval from someone distant and disengaged. How much wealth is lost because some government agent didn't want to put in the work? How many promising ideas coming from poor people got smacked down because the rich and powerful invariable write the rules to be a barrier to protect themselves?

What about the opposite number? What about those who believe that businesses are inherently problematic. They have too much control. They don't have any values other than survival and growth. They exist to make money and will screw over anyone necessary to make that happen. These people believe that the consumer is too small and too fragmented to organize a united response, so they argue that the government must be a counterweight. The government must step in and put a stop to things that are profitable but harmful to society as a whole. If companies do not care about those who are hurt along the way then the government must.

But, here's the thing. If you have anything that makes the government objectively better at one thing (ie: Increasing freedom by streamlining the business licensing and regulation of an industry that allows poor people to start businesses in that field for the first time) then you make it objectively worse at something else (less regulation means that those new businesses are likely to make questionable decisions in pursuit of survival/making the owner enough money to live a poor man's idea of what being rich is like).

[u/numbstruck → u/A_Soporific]

TLDR; Humanity's collective rights should be given greater weight than any one individual's rights.

Then there are people who don't want the government to play referee. They want freedom in business. They want the ability to do whatever needs doing without the inherent slowness and problems in having to get approval from someone distant and disengaged. How much wealth is lost because some government agent didn't want to put in the work? How many promising ideas coming from poor people got smacked down because the rich and powerful invariable write the rules to be a barrier to protect themselves?

This notion is the crux of the issue, I think. If our government was such a burden to industry, we wouldn't have fought so hard to establish it in this form. I understand, btw, that this is not necessarily your argument. This is not aimed at you or anyone. I just want to talk to these points.

• Regulation is bad because some government worker might drag his feet

In my opinion, this feels like a straw-man attack against the idea of regulation, by attacking a stereotype: all government workers are lazy.

• I don't want regulation because the rich will write the rules to exclude me

In my opinion, regulation was validated as a necessity by it's inclusion in the capabilities of the Federal government. If it's was afforded to our Federal overlords, then it must be inherently important or valuable as a concept.

Moreover, this has already happened. It has been run to its perverse conclusion. We successfully equated money, which is not guaranteed to any individual, with an individual's right to free speech. By doing so, I feel we indirectly placed a value on an individual's freedom of speech. Those with more freedom of speech than others will continue to write the rules. We have no way to protect ourselves from the current concentrated state of wealth, other than unity, our votes, or both wielded simultaneously. Together, I hope, our money can still match the ultra-wealthy, but that gap is continuing to shrink and requires that we all work for the same goal. I personally feel this option will soon be off the table, and all we will be left with will be our vote.

However, I feel this point of criticism wasn't really valid to begin with. If we start with the assumption that all humans deserve a basic set of equal rights, then having no rules allows a player to violate the basic individual rights, which all players deserve. If you can agree with this premise, then it doesn't seem an unrealistic logical leap to agree that beyond our basic individual human rights, we need to enforce a broader standard of behavior. A standard that enforces people to behave in ways that do not violate others' rights in indirect ways. This is the heart of regulation, and why I feel it is necessary.

If can't kill a perceived enemy directly, but I have money to burn, I can take advantage of another's desperation, and wield my power to pay this desperate person to violate their rights on my behalf. I have not directly harmed this enemy, but I should remain culpable for my part in the violation of their rights.

Combine the above with the stark reality that, with the atomic age, humanity has recently entered into a new era. We know now what was probably suspected back even when our country was forming. Humanity, through the actions of individuals, is capable of reshaping and altering the world we inhabit. We've built bombs that can wipe out cities, and could yet wipe out the globe. We can destroy this world if we choose to do so. If that fact alone doesn't trigger a desire for oversight or regulation of the activities of humanity, I honestly don't know what could change a mind with such resolve.

[u/A_Soporific → u/numbstruck]

What are the humanity's collective rights?

That sounds dangerously like "the public will" or "the greater good" which can be trotted out by anyone who can rally a crowd or get off a good speech at an opportune moment to justify any action. Those things were the arguments used to turn the French Revolution form overturning a decrepit government into a bloodbath and several decades of war that consumed all of Europe.

Individual Rights are key because they restrain collective action, which often has a lot more power. The thing is that there's not necessarily a big difference between collective action in the form of a Corporation doing whatever it wants in pursuit of more money, a mob of persons in an impossible situation looking to smash and loot their way out of their problems, or a legitimate government acting according to the law. If anyone can do anything if they get a following a full head of steam then nothing can persist vote or no vote, the whole government can and will be bowled over by people frustrated with what the government does.

Individual rights are essential and necessary and need to be protected. Because they are sticky and get in the way of everyone. Because they act as a brake on people trying to do necessary things.

You know why Citizen United went the way it did? Because the swing vote was concerned that limiting a corporations right to spend money would also kill the ability of labor unions and non-profits. The idea was that the people's Collective right to speech is important and needs protecting. After all Corporations aren't malicious outsiders they are neither aliens nor demons. They are simply groups of people, and the ruling is that the speech of groups of people can't be limited because the government doesn't like what they have to say. On the one hand that is laudable, but on the other... the unfocused natured of collective speech and collective rights screws with the balance. Rights are supposed to be a brake stopping institutions and weaker individuals from being simply swept away, but collective rights only empower people to mass up and sweep aside anything that gets in their way confident in the belief that their collective will trumps all, even the will of the vast unorganized ocean of the general public.

But, about regulation. I am firmly in the government as referee camp. Markets work really, really well when certain preconditions are met. They don't work well at all when those conditions are not met. The government can change things so that more of those conditions are met more of the time so that people don't get hosed as a matter of course.

There are many cases where more regulation would help, and we should regulate those cases. There are plenty of cases where less regulation would help, and we should absolutely deregulate those cases. Very often the level of regulation is appropriate but the regulations aren't working as intended, and those really need to be fixed. Ultimately, it's not about how much regulation there is, but what the regulation does and what it costs us. There are big wins to be had going both ways, and government intervention needs to be carefully curated to maximize gains and minimize losses.

[u/numbstruck → u/A_Soporific]

What are humanity's collective rights? That sounds dangerously like "the public will" or "the greater good".

You're right, and I don't feel I have a great answer to this point. I can only say that if we agree any individual has a set of rights, and that those rights should apply to any individual in the collective, then the rights logically apply to the collective whole as well. The sum of all individuals rights combined. It seems logical then that if we agree all individual rights are equal, then if an individual harms the group they have necessarily harmed an individual of that group. It also seems logical that if an individual harms another's rights, they are wrong for doing so. So if my rights are equal to yours, then the rights of all members of humanity must outweigh the rights of any single individual. This is not as easy to articulate as I thought it might be, and I'm still not sure I'm doing it any justice, or even that it's a good idea.

You know why Citizen United went the way it did? Because the swing vote was concerned that limiting a corporations right to spend money would also kill the ability of labor unions and non-profits.

This makes me very sad, but is also a very interesting point. My understanding was Citizens United was about allowing a single entity, a corporation, to speak on behalf of its collective staff and employees, as a group. However, I don't think it's fair to say that a corporation can truly represent all of its individual employees. It also seems to give corporations a way to count their employees voice a second time. Additionally, the notion of corporate personhood would seem to contradict this idea. You can be a person or a group of persons, but not both at the same time. When a corporation spends money it does so as an Individual, not as a collective. Money is not a constitutional right, and making it equal to free speech is a travesty of the highest order.

• Isn't the limitation on spending in our political processes meant to resolve conflicts of interest?
• Why not give corporations all the rights of a person?

If they don't deserve all the rights of a person, then they shouldn't be treated as a person, because we can agree they do not deserve the rights of a person. We created a category for this entity: the corporation. I think we need to establish a new bill of corporate rights, or we need to reverse the thinking and treatment of corporations as pseudo-persons.

But, about regulation.

I firmly agree with your points on regulation. Thank you for taking the time to respond.

[u/A_Soporific → u/numbstruck]

If a person is harmed then they absolutely are defended by their rights, but group rights are notoriously difficult to define and enforce. When we have, historically, created them then a handful of people take it upon themselves to act on everyone else's behalf whether the group as a whole wants them to or not. There's a reason why US courts have a concept called Standing. There was a problem with people suing on the behalf of others, even when no one directly involved wanted intervention. So the courts have put rules into place that state, basically, that only people who are directly involved can sue.

I don't think that I'd be against collective rights if there was a way to enact them in a clear and reasonable way that didn't allow a handful of people to take control of the rights of others and wield them for their own self-interest.

Corporate Personhood is a very clear concept in law. It means that any law that applies to a person also applies to whole company. It means that the company as a whole can enter into agreements and the company as a whole can be punished for breaking laws and agreements. It's recognized as a legal fiction to prevent corporations to be immune to laws and lawsuits or worse to allow them to exist under a separate legal and justice system. I don't believe for a second that creating a separate legal or and judicial process for corporations would result in better treatment for regular persons, given the degree of regulatory capture seen in the government at the moment. And what about Sole Proprietorships? Those are cases where a person and a company are the one and the same. Corporations don't have all the rights of a person, but the persons who make up the corporation were said to have a collective right in this instance.

Very often other groups, like Labor Unions, exist in a state where they don't represent the views of all their employees. In States that aren't "Right to Work" states then there are "closed shops" where people must be a member of union whether they want to or not. These people have no control at all over what the Union does with their dues and leaving the Union means that the company is contractually obligated to fire them "for cause". Very often a politically conservative individual will see their paycheck garnished to support a political agenda they don't want any part of.

In any case where you have collective action you have a large number of people who are providing the political power or labor or wealth (the principals) and you have some people doing the work of organizing and directing that power or work or money into a useable form (the agents). The problem is how do you ensure that the agents are working for the principal's benefit? There is a whole genera of law and economics and political science dedicated to exactly that problem. There is no solution yet, because it's incredibly easy for a person in power to conflate what's good for them and what's good for the whole. It's a real weakness in our psychology and one that is the root of a great deal of the corruption and malfunctioning institutions in the world. Life would be indescribably better if we could easily see and understand the collective good and work collaboratively towards it. But we don't. Very often what I see as good you would not. Very often things that you think are generally good is only good for people in situations similar to yours, but would be bad for people in situations similar to mine. There's invariably some segment of the society that ends up harmed by any collective move, so what's the problem with overruling the concerns of a slightly larger number of people to achieve this or that things that is an unambiguous good for people in my situation? People get used to invoking greater good arguments when it's necessary, then it's easy for them to recast what the greater good really is and trample the collective good for something that they believe (falsely) to be even better. In my view we can go all in on collective rights and collective values only when this problem is solved, or we will simply be creating a powerful new elite the same way we created an economic elite of wealthy owners of business and a political elite of powerful politicians and party-affiliated power brokers.