“The Special Interest State that has shaped American life for 70 years is dying. What comes next is uncertain, but there are grounds for optimism…”

http://www.american.com/archive/2009/april-2009/the-coming-of-the-fourth-american-republic

A little on the optimistic side, perhaps?

In ways that’s true, but we also have the OLDEST government in the whole world (with surely a few “minor” exceptions like Iceland or Switzerland or someplace.)

Huh.

@22, Scott – Your question “Is it better to be in a slow growing, stable state or a fast growing, less stable state?” is incredibly apropos. There is a significant value judgement involved. Through our collective actions today, we are making that choice.

I strongly believe that America has prospered for an out-sized amount of time precisely because we as a culture opted for Liberty over Security. The “cowboy” was internationally famous as the icon of this mindset: tough, self reliant, free. Something the whole world was fascinated by.

Today, our cultural perspective is almost 180degrees opposite – with a “culture of fear” which pushes a nanny state, continually trading liberty for safety. The downside to the slow stable state is the inability for the Individual to choose or affect his destiny. Great if you are born a Gates or a Bush or a Clinton…not so great if you are born to a housekeeper.

If the US continues to stagnate, unable to escape the trap…better keep your Karma up!

You both make excellent points about the central issue, which is the use of congress as the basic mechanism for increasing the power of any cartel that wants to take for itself instead of providing for others.

And philg, you’re especially right to note that ending privately financed elections (an obvious recipe for corruption) is not the be-all-end-all solution. Rather, it is one of three essential steps that must be taken.

The others are an and to earmark privileges, and an end to gerrymandering. Gerrymandering, of course, allows politicians to select the voters who can elect them, insulating themselves for any meaningful opposition by competing parties. And earmarks, though inconsequential in terms of the overall budget, are a great way to beat back challengers for one’s seat.

However, publicly financed elections, for people who were subject to competitive forces, and unable to choose of buy off voters could have a transformative effect on Congress.

When the Congressional body becomes a source of fear for abusive special interests, as opposed to their most valuable tool, then we may have achieved a state of perpetual revolution that Jefferson seemed to regard as essential to the preservation of liberty.

The problem with the US government, and in many states where you cite slowed economic growth, is that there are too few legislators representing too many constituents. What does my Senator in Washington care what I think when I only represent 1 out of 15,000,000 constituents?

Luckily we have invented complex machines to help us. They make this immense task manageable, but more importantly their existence has created a population of people who manage intent in complex systems every day. They are an economically and politically diverse group with an inherent distrust of corruption and a bias for science and transparency.

The real difficulties would be finding a basis for profiling (likely based on opinions of lawyers and judges and possibly some machine analysis), and creating a capable political movement interested in changing our government.

One thing which apparently Olson failed to predict was the UK economic miracle of the 1980s, whereby several decades of relative decline was reversed and the UK moved up from being a mid-teens ranking economy to fourth in the world (for a while).

So the declining trend of an old economy was, as a matter of fact, reversible. Maybe constructive change is possible – but it requires a political genius like Thatcher to do it.

And the effect was temporary and the UK is now back in its bad old habits (as described by Olson) ust as in the 1970s, with no prospect of positive radical reform visible even on the horizon.

See: ‘Seeking a premier economy: the economic effects of British economic reforms 1980-2000′, by David Card et al.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XUGqOHKOWP4C&dq=card+freeman+economy+britain&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=URUcq19p3q&sig=bp-vJEQTBYBiYpG65OtbwPqS7kI&hl=en&ei=uczAScDOLZG3tweYjuDSCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPA3,M1

Likewise, China’s growth has been explosive, and that’s great if you can profit from it. However, I’d wager that there are many Chinese factory workers who would trade places with a soon to be laid off automotive employee in Detroit.