So, why is government regulation the worse option again?

[Montmorency]

The problem is, how do you get elected if you have no stake in the private sector?

Do we only appoint eccentric rich hermits from the 'gentry' to the legislature? Only those who have been homeless and destitute for at least 5 years?

Even coming from the other end and forbidding Congresspeople from ever working in the private sector again (after their terms are up) has clear problems.

[HoreTore]

The problem is, how do you get elected if you have no stake in the private sector?

I have read very little in this thread, and I'm just butting my head in on this single issue:

How 'bout academia? What about letting the smart guys run the show, instead of the greedy idiots?

[Greyblades]

Who watches the watchers

[HoreTore]

American academia is also generally run by business. Certainly anyone who relies on research grants will be the opposite of unbiased.

I find it hard to imagine that the top professors at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, etc are all corrupted and entangled with special interests.

Those are the guys who should be prime candidates for cabinet jobs, IMO.

The Chinese, who are rapidly owning your collective behinds, have been doing that since they shot Mao's drinking buddies to great success, even though it's been limited to just a few disciplines, ie. natural sciences(they're all engineers).

[Montmorency]

How 'bout academia? What about letting the smart guys run the show, instead of the greedy idiots?

There are plenty in academia who are avaricious, short-sighted, or even downright ignorant.

There are plenty outside it who aren't.

Anyway, just because someone's good at doing research in some narrow field with a few hundred colleagues around the world doesn't mean they'll be good at administering a broad range of legislative matters for hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions of fellow citizens.

But you're not taking the Platonic angle of permitting only academics to run for public office, right?

Ultimately, there is the conflict of interest regarding kickbacks to and from academic institutions themselves. Then again, I suppose these can't cause nearly as much harm as trillion-dollar Big Finance...

Finally, only the politically motivated would run, and in the end that's the very same problem, isn't it?

I find it hard to imagine that the top professors at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, etc are all corrupted and entangled with special interests.

Those are the guys who should be prime candidates for cabinet jobs, IMO.

They often are - it's just that, how would they do in the heights of the legislature rather than in the mid-executive?

If you rely on corporations to exist, you probably don't belong in the government.

Same complaint I raised before : who doesn't, really?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Because like everything else in this capitalistic society, public office is thought to be another commodity that can be bought and sold.

Americans have steadily rejected the idea of a public good, and now they must realize one by one that they will never become part of the oligarchy that has bought everything up.

[Montmorency]

There's no need to get semantically absurd with this.

It's not at all.

Every business relies on big business, ultimately. Even a run-down pizza parlor in Harlem, or a bait shop in rural Minnesota, would be susceptible to this influence somewhere along the line. You're the one who thinks even corporate ties with universities (in training, or jobs' fairs, or whatever) make academics as corruptible as big lawyers and corporate executives and financiers, after all...

If you rely on corporations to exist, you probably don't belong in the government.

And yes, perhaps Joe Blow off the street with a GED and a low-income service-sector job doesn't have any unacceptably strong ties, but:

*Why would he run at all, unless he were both extremely passionate and extremely confident that he could win?*
*Could he afford to run and fail?
*What would make him qualified to legislate, or at least more so than a lawyer or some-such individual?
*What makes you think he would be less, rather than more, corruptible to any of the naughtier stuff going on in the legislature?
*What makes you think he wouldn't seek to become a career politician, if not just because the benefits are so much better than in his old job?
*What makes you think he would, if a Rep, work for his district rather than his neighborhood, or if a Senator, for his state rather than his county?
*What makes you think he would be nationally-minded at all?

*The 'novelty' candidates - who typically run for very local positions - are irrelevant

[Montmorency]

No, my point was, why do you think Joe Blow would be a better politician than our current politicians?

[HoreTore]

But you're not taking the Platonic angle of permitting only academics to run for public office, right?

I'm talking about cabinet members, not people running for office.

And no, I'm not suggesting to restrict it to academia. What I'm saying is that there is a huge under-representation of leading Harvard(or similar) professors in cabinets. And not just in the US, but everywhere.

But one of the things that seems to rise from the euro crisis is the technocrat government - and I think it's a rather good idea.

Have Harvard's leading professor of law as justice minister, have their leading economics professors(but stay clear of chicago...) as finance minister, etc.

Narrow fields? That's only applicable to the lower-level ones. It doesn't apply at all to the true greats, like Dewey, Schumpeter, Habermas, etc.