I read an article about democracy, neoliberalism, wealth, politicians, corporations and why apparently everything gets worse when people with money get too comfortable around people with power.
So naturally I ended up thinking about Spider-Man again.
This keeps happening.
Money is power
The article argues that over the last few decades, deregulation, privatisation, tax cuts and financialisation helped concentrate wealth and weaken some of the institutions democracies rely on. It also argues that when wealth becomes concentrated enough, it starts becoming political influence too.
That part feels pretty obvious to me.
Money is power.
It always has been.
Kings wanted gold.
Land.
Armies.
Resources.
Today maybe it is shares, companies, media, infrastructure, data, property, political donations, whatever.
The format changes.
The basic idea does not.
If someone has enough money, they have more options than everyone else.
More access.
More influence.
More ability to shape what happens around them.
So when wealth gets extremely concentrated, I think pretending it is only a personal financial matter becomes a little ridiculous.
At some point it becomes power.
Everyone can advocate. Nobody should be able to buy more democracy.
I don’t think organisations having agendas is automatically bad.
Farmers organise.
Workers organise.
NGOs organise.
Religious groups organise.
Businesses organise.
Everybody wants something.
That’s normal.
The problem is when one group can secretly buy more access than another.
A farmer saying:
we need better prices
is one thing.
A corporation saying:
we would very much appreciate this regulation disappearing
while privately funding the people making the decision is something else.
And even lobbying has always felt a little strange to me as an Indian.
Sometimes I look at the concept and think:
this sounds suspiciously like bribery with paperwork.
Obviously there is a formal difference between persuading government and literally paying someone for a favour.
But morally, the line gets uncomfortable when money gives you access that an ordinary citizen simply cannot have.
So my basic rule would be:
everyone can advocate.
nobody should be able to secretly buy more democracy.
Say who you are.
Say what you want.
Say who is funding you.
Say who benefits.
And even then, transparency alone does not magically make a massive imbalance fair.
Rules don’t magically fix humans
The annoying part is that the moment you make rules, people start finding loopholes.
Ban one kind of donation.
Money finds another route.
Add disclosure.
Someone invents another organisation.
Restrict one kind of influence.
It gets renamed.
Humans are incredibly creative when money is involved.
Which means the answer probably isn’t:
write the perfect rulebook.
There is no perfect rulebook.
Nothing created by humans is perfect.
Except Perfect Cell himself.
Obviously.
The better goal is probably to build systems where corruption is harder, more visible and more expensive.
Not systems that assume everyone inside them will be noble.
Because they won’t be.
Pay politicians more?
The article suggests something that initially sounds insane:
pay politicians more.
The argument is basically that if you want highly competent people managing countries, maybe paying them far less than major corporate executives makes politics less attractive to people who could otherwise do something else.
Logically?
I understand it.
Emotionally?
I am not convinced that giving a greedy person more money suddenly makes them less greedy.
They might just go:
yes. obviously I deserve this.
And continue exactly as before.
But maybe there is another effect.
Politics becomes more like an actual profession.
Competent people who aren’t already wealthy might be more willing to enter.
Public service becomes less dependent on already having money or connections.
Maybe.
But higher salaries only make sense to me with much stronger accountability.
Not:
we paid you more, please be good now.
More like:
we are paying you properly, so now there is even less excuse for corruption.
Democracy isn’t supposed to guarantee good people
This is where I think I understand democracy differently from the way people sometimes talk about it.
Democracy isn’t valuable because it always chooses the best leader.
Clearly that is not true.
Democracy is valuable because of time.
I think the people who built democratic systems already understood that bad people would eventually get power.
Corrupt people.
Incompetent people.
Selfish people.
People who genuinely believe stupid things.
The important part is that they aren’t supposed to stay forever.
There is another election.
Another government.
Another generation.
Another chance to correct what happened.
So democracy isn’t:
good people will always rule us.
It is closer to:
bad people will eventually rule us, so make sure there is a peaceful way to remove them.
That is a much less romantic idea.
But I think it is stronger.
Democracy is a correction mechanism
A dictatorship can look amazingly efficient if the dictator happens to be competent.
Great.
Then what happens when the next one isn’t?
There is no guaranteed reset button.
Democracy tries to build one in.
People vote badly.
They realise it.
They vote differently.
An institution fails.
Someone reforms it.
A law becomes outdated.
It changes.
A government abuses power.
People push back.
Ideally.
That word is doing some work.
But the whole thing only functions because society can correct itself over time.
The article ends in a similar place: its answer to democratic decline is not less democracy, but more participation, stronger institutions and more ways for people to challenge entrenched political structures.
The constitution is there because the majority can be stupid too
Democracy cannot just mean:
51% wins, everyone else good luck.
If 70% of a country decides:
the other 30% no longer deserve basic rights
the fact that it was voted on doesn’t make it good.
That’s partly why constitutions matter.
Some things should be difficult to casually remove.
Rights.
Elections.
Courts.
Basic protections.
Because the majority is also a form of power.
And power needs limits.
Again.
We keep ending up here.
Civics should teach you how to actually be a citizen
If ordinary people are supposed to maintain democracy, we should probably tell them how the machine works.
Not only:
this is Parliament.
this is the Constitution.
write five marks on the functions of the Rajya Sabha.
I mean actually useful things.
What are my rights?
How do taxes work?
How do I read a payslip?
How does insurance work?
How do loans and interest work?
What part of government handles what?
How do I apply for basic documents?
How do I complain if something goes wrong?
What can the police legally ask me to do?
How do I appeal a government decision?
How do I navigate bureaucracy without needing one mysterious uncle who “knows a guy”?
People don’t need to become lawyers.
They need enough understanding to not enter adulthood completely blind.
Because technically having rights and practically knowing how to use them are two different things.
Government does not need to be simple
I don’t even think government is unnecessarily complicated all the time.
Humans are complicated.
Societies are complicated.
There are edge cases.
Different regions.
Different needs.
Loopholes.
Conflicting rights.
Of course government becomes complicated.
But the entry point should not be.
There should be a basic overview of what every citizen needs to know that is simple enough to teach properly.
If democracy depends on ordinary people asking:
does this need to change?
then they first need to understand:
what is this supposed to be doing?
GDP is not your life
The article also attacks GDP as the main scoreboard for whether a country is doing well.
And I completely agree with that.
GDP tells you economic activity happened.
Useful.
But economic growth is not automatically growth of the people.
A country can get richer while:
housing becomes unaffordable
public services get worse
people work longer
health gets worse
inequality increases
the environment gets damaged
everyone becomes miserable
and the government still stands there going:
GDP went up 🎉
The article points out that GDP can rise through things like war spending or rebuilding after disasters, while ignoring things like unpaid work, quality of life and many other things people actually care about.
Which reminds me of a RussianBadger joke:
if you blow up the entire planet, unemployment falls to zero.
Amazing statistic.
Minor issue.
everything fell to zero.
Economic growth should be government’s headache
I don’t mean the economy doesn’t matter.
Obviously it matters.
Government should absolutely worry about growth.
Debt.
Employment.
Investment.
Productivity.
All the boring machinery.
But maybe that should mostly be their headache.
The public conversation should be more:
Can people afford housing?
Are people healthy?
Do public services work?
Are wages enough?
Is education improving?
Is the environment getting worse?
Do people trust institutions?
Do people actually feel like their lives are getting better?
And government should not be the only one deciding what counts as success either.
Otherwise governments can always choose the statistic that makes them look best.
Housing terrible?
Talk about GDP.
Wages bad?
Talk about employment.
Public trust collapsing?
Look, exports!
Everybody gets to choose the exam they already passed.
Progress for who?
This is also why I get annoyed when something gets called technological progress as if that ends the conversation.
AI data centres are a good example for me.
Huge infrastructure.
Huge energy use.
Water use.
Environmental impact.
And everyone goes:
progress.
Okay.
Progress for who?
At what cost?
Sometimes compromises are necessary.
Sometimes there really is a trade-off.
Sometimes a project is useful enough that you minimise the damage as much as possible and proceed.
Other times you should just say no.
We only have one planet.
You don’t get another one because the quarterly results were excellent.
“We had no choice” needs proof
If a government or company says:
this project is necessary
I think they should have to prove that.
Why this location?
Why this scale?
What alternatives were considered?
What environmental damage is expected?
Who suffers?
Who benefits?
What happens if the prediction is wrong?
Was this genuinely the least harmful option?
Or was it just cheaper?
Because:
we had no choice
is a very convenient sentence when the person saying it already got what they wanted.
Wealth should be taxed because wealth is power
I personally think extremely concentrated wealth should be taxed more aggressively.
Not because:
rich person bad.
That’s childish.
Because money is power.
If someone owns enough companies, land, infrastructure, media, capital and property, they have a form of power whether or not they hold political office.
And the article makes that connection pretty directly: concentrated wealth can feed concentrated political influence and help elites protect their own position.
So taxation can be more than raising money.
It can be a brake on power becoming hereditary.
You can be successful.
You can be extremely rich.
You can enjoy what you built.
But once your wealth becomes large enough that it starts shaping society around you, I think society has a legitimate reason to push some of that power back outward.
But the state is power too
Of course, the obvious reply is:
great, you limited private power and handed everything to the government.
Also bad.
The state already has enormous economic power.
The answer isn’t unlimited government.
The answer is making government accountable too.
Elections.
Courts.
Transparency.
Constitutional limits.
Public scrutiny.
Independent institutions.
Citizens who know their rights.
So I don’t think the real argument is:
private power bad, state power good.
It’s:
unaccountable power is dangerous wherever it appears.
Corporation.
Billionaire.
Religious organisation.
Political party.
Government.
Doesn’t matter.
Bring the hammer
This is where Nietzsche somehow sneaks back into another Field Note.
Bring the hammer.
Not necessarily to smash things.
To test them.
Government says:
trust us.
Tap.
Why?
Corporation says:
this is necessary.
Tap.
Who benefits?
Political party says:
we represent the people.
Tap.
Show me.
Institution says:
we’ve existed for a hundred years.
Tap.
Do you still work?
Trust should be earned.
And then maintained.
You don’t get permanent trust because you did something good once.
Healthy skepticism is not paranoia
I don’t mean:
everyone is lying.
That becomes useless too.
If people reach:
government lies
courts lie
media lies
scientists lie
everyone lies
then eventually nothing can function.
But if a genuine majority becomes deeply distrustful of institutions, I also don’t think the first response should be:
wow, the public has become irrational.
Maybe ask:
what happened?
How many failures?
How much corruption?
How many promises?
How many people had to feel ignored before trust collapsed?
The article talks about declining trust and political frustration as consequences of repeated institutional and economic failures.
Distrust can also be information.
Citizens’ assemblies are kind of cool
The article mentions citizens’ assemblies, especially the Irish model, where ordinary people are randomly selected to deliberate on difficult issues and make recommendations.
Honestly?
I think that’s a good idea.
A hundred people is basically a smaller democracy happening.
Give them evidence.
Experts.
Different viewpoints.
Time.
Let them argue.
Ask stupid questions.
Change their minds.
Then produce a recommendation.
I wouldn’t give them binding power right now.
Advisory power seems better to me at this point.
Maybe future me thinks differently.
That’s future me’s problem.
But I like the idea that ordinary people are not automatically too stupid to participate seriously.
Give them the tools and see what happens.
White-collar crime is still crime
Another part of the article talks about how large companies and executives can cause enormous damage and still end up facing fines or regulatory action instead of consequences that look anything like normal criminal punishment.
That makes no sense to me.
A criminal commits a criminal act.
You don’t suddenly go:
he’s innocent because he had goons working for him.
If a CEO approves fraud, ignores major warnings, creates incentives that produce illegal behaviour, benefits from it and then says:
I didn’t know
that isn’t automatically innocence.
Sometimes:
I didn’t know
is negligence.
It’s your job.
How did you not know?
You cannot take the profits, control the organisation, make the decisions and then magically become powerless when responsibility arrives.
If the goons take orders from the mafia boss and the money flows upward, we understand that chain of responsibility perfectly well.
Boardrooms should not become enchanted zones where responsibility disappears.
With great power comes…
Yes.
Again.
Spider-Man.
I keep using it because it’s right.
With great power comes great responsibility.
And I think that applies institutionally too.
More authority?
More responsibility.
More wealth?
More responsibility.
More knowledge?
More responsibility.
More ability to affect other people’s lives?
More accountability when you screw it up.
Power should not make you less responsible.
It should make you more.
Democracy needs ordinary people
Ultimately, I think democracy requires faith.
Not faith that everybody is good.
Not faith that everyone is intelligent.
Not faith that voters will always make the right decision.
Clearly not.
It requires faith that the average ordinary people of a country are, somewhere underneath everything, decent enough to want things to get better.
For themselves.
For their families.
For their neighbours.
Hopefully eventually for everyone.
People will be selfish.
People will get manipulated.
People will vote badly.
People will defend stupid things.
There will always be boot lickers.
But democracy is basically betting that, given enough freedom, information and time, enough ordinary people will eventually go:
this isn’t working.
And change it.
No conclusion
Maybe democracy was never supposed to eliminate bad people.
Maybe the people who built it already knew bad people would come.
Maybe the clever part was giving everyone else a way to fight back without having to burn the entire system down every time.
Vote them out.
Question them.
Investigate them.
Take them to court.
Protest.
Organise.
Reform.
Try again.
Democracy isn’t perfect.
It can’t be.
Humans made it.
But maybe imperfection is partly why it can keep changing.
And maybe that’s the real responsibility of ordinary people inside it.
Don’t worship power.
Don’t automatically destroy it either.
Inspect it.
Question it.
Make it explain itself.
Trust it when it earns that trust.
And keep the hammer nearby.
Because trust is earned.
And then maintained.
