Garett Jones

A quick (and I mean quick) read and very briefly proposes and discusses changes to rich, Western democracies that might improve their functioning (read, outcomes; read, financial... stability, wealth, etc.... mostly.)

I'm receptive to these kinds of ideas and arguments ("more democracy" sounds good, always... but is it? By what criteria? And why not test that?) and this book sketches some proposals and evidence for, or at at least around, those proposals. I also have a bit of a soft spot for the "undemocratic" (or, to use the apparently preferred term, "realist") question: why does a 22-year-old high-school drop-out get the same say as a 50-year-old with a master's degree? I think I have an aswer that isn't the "cynical" version Jones claims it is, but I nonetheless can't quite shake the feeling that the question makes an awful lot of sense.

Overall, the author's best argument might be the one he never really comes out and states. We're experimenting with our government now (we started with direct elections of Senators in the 1920's and we continue with, among other things, the use of -or even the mere existence of- social media now) so why balk at fiddling around the edges to increase the role of expertise, education, long-range thinking, 'cooler passions', etc. and to decrease the (corrupting) pressures of re-election, etc.?… (more)