Who Were the Sea Peoples?

Monarchy is an interesting possible solution to Hayek's problem of why "the worst get on top": the monarch had to make no effort to get on top except that of getting out of the birth canal. And history lends this notion some support: of course, there have been very bad monarchs, but I don't think the worst of them approach Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot. Sortition, of course, is another possible solution. Just wishing that "Everyone will stay at the bottom and so no one will be on top!" on the other hand, is not much of solution.

Did you know that Thomas Paine recommended selecting the U.S. President partially using sortition ? But what's with the spelling of my title? Will, when I sent myself a note via Siri to blog about this Siri decided I wanted a note about "Thomas Payne" and "Sortation." Two out of three words wrong. Voice recognition is still not up to snuff for serious writing projects.

There is nothing essential in the theory of the state that requires a "political class" to exist or requires that this class exploits a "productive class." Nonetheless, it must be said that, in practice, this structure may arise. And the (possible) existence of this structure seems to be a major brief in the case people like Tom Knapp make against the state. So here is a question for Tom, and others in his position: let us say we had a state very like ones we see around us today, but where political office was assigned by pure sortition, i.e., a lottery or something of the sort. In that circumstance, there could not be anything like a "political class": everyone has an equal shot at office, and will rotate in and out of politics as his or her name is drawn. There are no lobbyists throwing around cash to finance elections, because there are no elections. Would that state be OK?

Something that sometimes happens is that libertarians think I must no longer understand the pitfalls of politics that I once understood. Not so! Coming to appreciate the pitfalls of trying to ignore or do away with politics does not imply having forgotten the pitfalls of politics itself. One serious problem is that the government officials, who are supposed to be attending to the common weal, come to treat their offices as merely ways to feather their own nests. (Those who would say that that is all that government officials ever do are being absurd: all I can say is get out of your parent's basement and meet a variety of people in government posts: most of them are genuinely concerned, to some extent or other , with actually doing good at their job, even if they are also concerned with doing well themselves. I'd say, in fact, it's much like at any private company for which I've worked: some people are devoted to the company, some care enough to get promotions, som...

Over at ThinkMarkets: now he thinks he knows how to do campaign finance reform using some weird stuff called "sortition." Next thing you know, he'll be lecturing us on probability, or some s&^t like that.