I do too. What can be done about it? Enlighten me. I would love to harness the awesome power of machiavelli/bloom to get what I want.
I mean are we talking at the national level or at the personal level? If we’re talking personal, do you have a superior you answer to?
Either. Both would be nice. I’d like to get both what I want personally and politically.
The state, I guess. I have professors etc, but I don’t think of them as my ‘superiors’ or bosses. We’re equally bound to one another.
Man, there are so many things I like to share from this book but I’ll just take one of my favorite quotes.
“A prince must show himself a lover of merit, give preferment to the able and honor those who excel in every art.”
I’ve interpreted this to mean: always go out of your way to reward someone or at least acknowledge the abilities of that person when you want them to like you. Find the things that people take pride in and then compliment them on it. This is what I have used with superiors to try and gain their favor. I had a teacher in college who had written some obscure papers on theology or something so I went and read them and then went to his office and talked about them. He never gave me anything less than an A on anything after that.
EDIT: I’m still trying to find all the parts that I’ve used to help me understand power at a national level.
Why do you think it is a half truth? It should be obvious that in a monarchy, the king’s decisions are guided by his self interest; in a democracy, the same can be said for the majority. I agree that any economic ignorance will hinder their efforts, but it isn’t a necessary condition for the phenomena we see today.
Behaviour is hugely context dependant, there may be times at which the mainstream depiction of a self interested utility maximiser is appropriate, on the other end of the spectrum, there may be times where the self interest assumption does not do reality any justice whatsoever. Well, I think the ballot fits into the latter category. The empirical data would seem to support my hypothesis, otherwise, how else do you explain the fact that voters in non-farm states regularly vote in favour of farm subsidies?
There are other considerations, but I think the problem is largely idealogical. The world could be full of people who want to subjugate their fellow man, but so long as people oppose their slavemasters, there’s hope for liberty. There are some game theory objections answered here that I won’t go into. It depends what your particular objections to anarchism.
Perhaps it can work; there’s been empirical work done that would suggest that maybe it is feasible. But the fact remains, I view it as neither morally desirable nor economically superior.
If a group of men is inherently altruistic, you don’t need government to mobilize them. Democracy’s reliance on the charity of the majority is at best superfluous, as the majority could still act without the state apparatus.
Probably because they buy some overall utility argument about it. Though I do agree people tend to make unselfish, utilitarian gestures in the public political realm, as I do. I think a government of the People would be far superior to our current Government of the Special Interests.
So, people might be more altruistic when discussing politics, but as is oft pointed out, this is a parlour game. They behave very differently in real life. People who refuse others of health coverage may vote democrat. Etc Etc.
This is also ignoring the plethora of bad decisions a majority might, such as going to war, devestating economic embargos, anti drug laws, compulsory education etc. etc.
Additionally, States are easy to hijack away from a general utilitarian purpose. Special interests much to gain by promoting their narrow agenda at the expense of the majority, who, in turn, stand relatively little to lose (as the cost will be spread out amongst them), so that it is not rational for the majority to rise up and expend energy fighting off special interest groups because the returns are so low.
You don’t think a compulsory monopoly on legal and military services is undesirable? And, I don’t know what you think is ethical, not subscribing to objective ethics myself, but I find it distasteful to attack and compell innocent people to support my causes, no matter how worthy.
(sorry for double post)
My point about states being easy to control by special interests is better put by Bastiat’s wiki:
An important corollary to these conclusions is that the power which consumers wield with any governing body, while theoretically tremendous, is extremely diffuse in application. Producers, on the other hand, while not as powerful on the whole as the sum total of consumers, have the ability to consolidate their power in ways that make it much more attractive for governing bodies to service their needs. Thus, while consumers could theoretically shut down an entire industry (or government) by refusing to buy/sell/do something, the likelihood of the great mass of people organizing in this way for any reason whatever is so infinitesimal as to be practically impossible. Producers, on the other hand, are able to threaten or cajole the government with shutting down a single industry, with reductions in political and financial contributions to the government agents who make certain decisions, etc. It is for this reason that governments are much more likely to pander to the desires of producers than to those of consumers, and it is for this reason, Bastiat concludes, that governments are inherently adversarial to the interests of the people as a whole. Indeed, they are even adversarial, in some way, to the interests of the producers themselves, as the producers of one good or service are still consumers of all the other goods and services.
^You do know that Machiavelli wrote the prince was just to get a job right?
Lol and? O wait, I forgot. If someone wants a job, I can’t take anything they say seriously while trying to get it. LOL.