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From: mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: corruption a non-word: accountability in Govt.
Message-ID: <868@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 30-Mar-85 23:56:34 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.868
Posted: Sat Mar 30 23:56:34 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Apr-85 06:59:12 EST
References: <827@oliven.UUCP> <535@whuxl.UUCP> <5324@utzoo.UUCP> <862@wucs.UUCP>
Reply-To: mwm@ucbtopaz.UUCP (Praiser of Bob)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 29
Summary: 

In article <862@wucs.UUCP> pvt1047@wucec1.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) writes:
>Not that simple.  It works, but badly.  BUT -- and I know I'm repeating
>myself, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in -- all the others work even
>more badly.  ("Absolutely the worst ... except for all the others".)  Now,
>y'all think you can get the democrats' position through your thick heads?
>
>					Iconoclastically,
>					Paul V. Torek, wucs!wucec1!pvt1047

Gee, last time this came up, Sevener quoted that particular idiocy. I
expected it to appear again, but not from Paul.

The problem with "all the others" is that the number of possible
organizations of power in a society is *much* larger than the total
number of people in that society - and the more people, the greater the
disparity in size.

I'll concede that democracy is the best system that I know of that has
been put into practice, that doesn't mean that:

	1) all possible systems are worse than democracy; or
	2) the representative democracy in the US is the best democracy.

It's easy to describe a system that will work better in practice than
democracy. Trouble is, all such systems (including democracy) suffer
from the need of knowing which part of the populace (if any) is behaving
rationally at some given point in time.

	<mike