... do you assume the universal veracity of the adage, "Power
corrupts"?
I don't know whether the characteristic is universal, but fear that
under any circumstances corruptable people will gain power within
three generations and most likely sooner.
Worse, people do tend to focus on tests for virtue (and often confuse
expressions of sincerity for virtue).
Various groups have said that only good people should be granted
power: the `nolo episcopari' of Christians, the statement that only
the virtuous should be selected among the Iroquois or the Moslem ...
but for a crook, to appear virtuous to strangers means you can game
the system well. For an initially uncorrupted person, it means being
themselves ... and then being corrupted.
Nick Arnett says,
... we have two sides to ourselves ...
As far as I can see, this is a safer presumption to make about
strangers in government than the presumption that
... the fundamental nature of each of us is goodness ...
as Warren Ockrassa said about Buddhists. However, I think the
Buddhist presumption is better for dealings with friends and family.
> (As I have said elsewhere, for a government encompassing
> different countries, I doubt that legislatures with power
> determined by history and by population work well enough. Such
> an institution needs a third house.
Based on money, iirc what was said elsewhere?
Paid dues or paid taxes can serve as a stand-in for military power.
If you -- that is to say, a region, a country -- can afford to pay
more for dues or taxes, you can afford to spend more coercing others.
Payment is necessary. Saying that you are rich, but won't pay, opens
the system to pretense, to `gaming the system'.
Of course, dues or taxes must be significantly large, at least the
size that a military force would cost. Otherwise, they don't stand as
indicators of real power.
I do not like this adding of legislative houses. The notion is very
cynical. but I keep remembering that World War One occurred in part
because France and Britain did not give part of their power to a
rising Germany. So Germany, which already had `take by force'
tradition, tried to take more power by war. Indeed, if the US had not
aided France, Britain, and Russia in WWI, chances are that Germany
would gained power by military action.
On the other hand, if Germany had been able to gain additional power
by paying more taxes than Britain, France, or Russia to a `European
Polity' rather than by attempting to gain it in a war, then we might
have had a much more civilized 20th century.
By `additional power', I mean trade deals and investment relations
among Russia, Germany, and Britain that increasingly favor Germany
more than Britain. That sort of action, which is what countries have
fought over.
(I don't recall you going into much detail before, but if I missed
a more detailed explanation, I'd appreciate a pointer to it.)
I talked about this, but perhaps not in enough detail, in
http://www.rattlesnake.com/notions/Choice-and-Constraint.html
in the sections on a `Three Chamber Legislature', `Veto Power' (or
what Americans call states' rights), `Goals', and `Means'.
--
Robert J. Chassell
[EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc
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