Is capitalism a threat to democracy? - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/14/is-capitalism-a-threat-to-democracy <comment><USER3> Simple answer: No.

More nuanced answer: not exactly. Not Capitalism per-se anyway. But clearly you can see an unhealthy degree of commingling of big government and big business, in a way that is damaging to society at large. But to my mind:

a. that's corruption, not capitalism

b. that's an argument against big government, not an argument against capitalism

<comment><USER4> In the absence of big government, big corporate will become defacto government even more easily.

<comment><USER5> Actually, we see this with the social media giants live in action: they may decide to terminate your account at any time for arbitrary (or none at all) reasons for your whole life, and you have no way of legal recourse.

There have been way too many stories alone on HN about people losing e.g. their entire mail archives or Youtube deleting evidence videos of war crimes, to let this situation continue for any longer.

Government needs to finally recognize the importance of social media to modern society... after all, telcos are not allowed to arbitrarily cut you off (especially not for life!). Why should social media be treated differently?

<comment><USER6> Telcos can't cut you off, but ISPs can. I guess dial up is potentially still an option, but internet access is much more relevant than telephone access in 2018.

<comment><USER5> > Telcos can't cut you off, but ISPs can.

Well, ISPs are replaceable (okay, they will offer different speeds). Get cut off, select another ISP (or mobile data).

A telco is not easily replaceable though, as the phone number is your unique handle that often cannot be changed easily (which is why you have the right to keep your number in Europe across providers)...

<comment><USER7> > _Get cut off, select another ISP (or mobile data)._

Comcast customers would like to have a word with you.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, that particular point is _technically_ true, but in reality it is absolutely false. Far too many people simply do not have competing options. ADSL and satellite are not really competing options if your third option is fiber.

I'd say it's reasonable these days to expect regular people (especially the 18-34 demo) to actually rely on the speeds you get with fiber. ADSL and satellite, by comparison, are slow as molasses.

A number of those folks could probably survive with a mobile data hotspot, but that is really not ideal for a house or apartment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I, for one, am looking forward to the nuanced, subtle discussion that will ensue here.

For the love of all that is holy, please don't comment unless you've read the article and want to discuss what it is trying to say.

<comment><USER10> I just don't understand why people think they can refute an argument that's been fleshed out into a book by writing a couple offhand sentences in response to a long form article on the book. Presumably the author would address popularly held assumptions to the contrary of his provocative argument in the book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Is freedom a threat to democracy?" is another way to word the headline.

<comment><USER12> No. But democracy is a threat to freedom.

<comment><USER13> It's only a threat to the freedom of the privileged, but it protects the freedom of the vulnerable.

<comment><USER14> OH god no. Democracy is a system which can _easily_ trample on the freedoms of the vulnerable. It's why you need to engineer your actual system of government to give representation to the vulnerable that is hard to ignore.

<comment><USER13> Democracy _is_ a system designed to give representation to the vulnerable. I suppose you're saying that it's possible to have a poorly designed democracy such as one that gives representation to the majority at the expense of the minority, which I agree with.

<comment><USER15> Pure democracy can be described as three wolves and a sheep deciding on what's for dinner.

<comment><USER13> Ha! That's funny. :) But not entirely accurate. The word "democracy" comes from the word "deme" which essentially a group of individually weak people who band together to make sure that they're all represented against other groups.

<comment><USER15> A deme was (and is) just a small municipality. There were plenty of powerful people who were members of and essentially ran a deme.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> An article with a title like this, people are only responding to the question (which is rhetorical anyway). The OP submission has only been up 1 hour at the time of this comment and the vast majority of the 100+ comments here are addressing only the title question or reactions to it. None mention Polanyi and few discuss the author's most salient points at the end of the article.

<comment> noir-york Polanyi as a thinker isn't frankly particularly imaginative or interesting: for someone who read British economic history, it appears he missed Adam Smith's Moral Sentiments, political liberalism, and the rise of a parliamentary labour movement in England (as opposed to a revolutionary party).

If Polanyi had considered the above he wouldn't have come to the conclusion that the two possibilities are either socialism or fascism.

The prescriptions - social welfare, etc - at the end of the article are known. The question is why they haven't been implemented in the US (they have in most other Western counties to various degrees).

I address other points in another comment below.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Capitalism and free market are two things. I wished people would be more specific with words. Many things happened together so things were conflated.

The core idea of capitalism is that ownership of companies is based on invested capital not people.

Also see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company)

I think it's better to discuss individual things like private property, capital ownership of companies, monopolies, free markets, consumerism, imperialism (along the lines of Standard Fruit Company) etc. on their own merit, not throwing everything on one pile - even if things interact, influence and lead to each other.

</comment><comment><USER18> For anyone who doesn't have time to read the whole article, the conclusion is pretty much "No, as long as we have a strong social safety net."

IE capitalism with some elements of socialism to preserve individual liberties and dignities when economies slow down. Which sounds reasonable to me as a capitalist but also as a human being.

<comment><USER19> > For anyone who doesn't have time to read the whole article, the conclusion > is pretty much "No, as long as we have a strong social safety net."

Well, then the answer is "yes". The whole issue being debated here is whether capitalism inevitably leads to a concentration of wealth which can then be leveraged into political power to create more concentration of wealth in a positive feedback cycle. The theory goes that after a couple iterations of that cycle, the wealthy will dismantle the social safety net entirely so they can cut their taxes.

Which is exactly what we're seeing right now.

<comment><USER18> 1) When competition is allowed to enter the market, we eventually have an equilibrium where the right number of competitors is producing a good or a service at the best price and highest quality possible. That is capitalism. When concentrations of wealth are leveraged into political power, you have cronyism in the government. That's not a fault of capitalism itself.

2) The wealthy cutting their taxes does not necessarily mean the social safety net has to be dismantled. You can have lower taxes and a high safety net. It all depends on what your tax revenue is and where you spend it. The US has trillions in tax revenue coming in every year, and yet we had something like 60 billion dollars of medicare fraud in a single year, exorbitant spending on useless military ventures, etc. If we slashed wasteful spending and fraudulent activities at the governmental level, we could afford a lot more safety net with less tax revenue.

The issue is that cronyism in government results in government only ever being satisfied with getting by with more funding and more budget, and never less.

<comment><USER20> > When competition is allowed to enter the market, we eventually have an > equilibrium where the right number of competitors is producing a good or a > service at the best price and highest quality possible. That is capitalism.

No, that's a highly theoretical model that doesn't exist in the real world.

> When concentrations of wealth are leveraged into political power, you have > cronyism in the government. That's not a fault of capitalism itself.

No True Capitalism eh? Why would a capitalist not use their capital in whichever fashion would lead to gaining even more wealth? Whether that be monopoly, collusion, or political power?

<comment><USER18> It does exist in the real world, although it can sometimes become obfuscated by government regulation and intervention. Example: Entering the pharmaceutical space to produce cost-effective generic medicines in order to steal market share from the big pharmaceuticals is hard because of government red-tape.

Using capital as leverage for political influence is not a central tenet of capitalism. You can be a capitalist and remain entirely outside the political realm. Some capitalists are known to use their capital for expensive philanthropic ventures or to support candidates who want to raise taxes.

Why did you ignore my comment about tax revenue and spending, by the way? That was the meat of the post.

<comment><USER20> > Using capital as leverage for political influence is not a central tenet of > capitalism. You can be a capitalist and remain entirely outside the > political realm.

If capitalism is based around rational self-interest, why would anyone exclude political power as a means of increasing their wealth? It would be deeply irrational to avoid such an avenue.

> It does exist in the real world, although it can sometimes become obfuscated > by government regulation and intervention. Example: Entering the > pharmaceutical space to produce cost-effective generic medicines in order to > steal market share from the big pharmaceuticals is hard because of > government red-tape.

Yes, regulations will interfere with the unfettered pursuit of profit, but that's by intent.

> Why did you ignore my comment about tax revenue and spending, by the way? > That was the meat of the post.

Because it didn't really seem to make much of a point. Yes government spending priorities could be different and I'm sure there's wastage that could be lessened - although I'd guess less than you think. Cronyism exists in any organisation of more than one person.

<comment><USER18> > If capitalism is based around rational self-interest, why would anyone > exclude political power as a means of increasing their wealth? It would be > deeply irrational to avoid such an avenue.

Not true. It is in our best and most rational self-interest to participate in philanthropy and in building a nice society that we can live in, enjoy, and make a profit in. Capitalism and philanthropy and a social safety net are not mutually exclusive, which is why (like I already said) there are capitalists who vote for candidates who want to increase taxes and increase spending on social goods and services.

In fact I'd argue that it's only capitalists who can properly invest and sustain a strong safety net. That's why countries like Switzerland and Denmark are capitalist countries.

> Yes, regulations will interfere with the unfettered pursuit of profit, but > that's by intent.

The example of it being hard to enter the pharmaceutical space to produce cost-effective generics is an example of government regulations prohibiting cost-reducing competition.

You can pursue profit while offering a good or a service that is less expensive and higher quality than the alternatives.

> Because it didn't really seem to make much of a point. Yes government > spending priorities could be different and I'm sure there's wastage that > could be lessened - although I'd guess less than you think. Cronyism exists > in any organisation of more than one person.

But the point was that it isn't capitalism that is responsible for that cronyism. And that the wealthy wanting tax cuts does NOT mean that the wealthy need to dismantle the safety net in order to get their tax cuts. We can afford both tax cuts and a safety net if we eliminate cronyism in the government.

<comment><USER21> > But the point was that it isn't capitalism that is responsible for that > cronyism

If by "capitalism" you mean the real-world economic system for which that name was coined by it's critical you are wrong.

If by "capitalism" you mean the abstract theory created to provide propaganda to justify that system _after_ it already existed, you are, well, still wrong, because that propaganda tool serves to protect the actual source of the problem.

> And that the wealthy wanting tax cuts does NOT mean that the wealthy need to > dismantle the safety net in order to get their tax cuts. We can afford both > tax cuts and a safety net if we eliminate cronyism in the government.

The wealthy don't want tax cuts independent of cronyism and social safety net, they want cronyism in their favor, including particular forms of tax and social safety net cuts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> According to many economists, yes.

Capitalism does not appear to have a stable mode with a low Gini coefficient. Power that derives from wealth becomes concentrated, which is clearly anti- democratic.

Democracy is only viable as a decision-making process in societies where everyone is more or less equal. When people gain power at the expense of others, the result is that the system may remain nominally democratic, but becomes more and more of a plutocracy.

In Marx's view, the abuse of the 99% by the 1% would inevitably lead to revolution, violent or otherwise. He then tried to come up with a method of economic organization that could be fair and stable after that revolution. It's not clear that this method has ever worked on a scale larger than a kibbutz or cooperative, but it's also clear that most families are run as communes, though this is rarely discussed.

Somewhere in the trek from startup partnership to corporation there is a shift from commune-like organization to dictatorial/plutocratic organization. I don't know if anyone has done an organized study.

<comment><USER20> > but it's also clear that most families are run as communes

Hunter-gatherer groups also operate on a cooperative basis where food sharing is an integral part of their social organisation. The trouble is whether this sort of model scales beyond Dunbar's number, something that few political models seem to take into account IMHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Anti free market hit piece disguised as an article using questionable interpretation of history. This is propaganda for the middle and upper class.

<comment><USER14> > This is propaganda for the middle and upper class

uh, how would this not be propaganda against the middle and upper classes?

<comment><USER23> Look at the vocabulary and reading level used to determine the target. It pushes a narrative right out the gate and uses a story format with fancy fonts to reinforce it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Is the freedom to choose what to Sell and what to Purchase a threat to the freedom to choose political leadership?"

No.

In fact, you cannot have the one without the other.

<comment><USER25> And what if you are free to purchase that political leadership and use it to curtail the freedom of others? And use it to skew the system and hoard wealth so nobody can ever buy it back? Hm?

I swear, an-caps just don't consider the actual consequences of their ideology. Just once I wish y'all would think something through all the way to the end and consider the possibility of non-ideal situations.

<comment><USER26> No such thing as anarcho-capitalists. Just Neo-Feudalists. The State no longer controls the means of violence, those with the most money become de facto lords capable of hiring their own mercenary protectors and creating small states. Everything becomes monopolies through consolidation or destruction of competition using stronger economic force by exploiting the lack of regulation. The 1300's come back in vogue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd answer this question by asking another: Is it profitable to destroy democracy? If so, someone is going to try it. That doesn't mean capitalism is any less compatible with democracy than socialism or any other system. But if we value democracy we need to defend against economic forces that threaten it.

<comment><USER27> I'd agree with this, and take it further: if there is any person or group of people who stand to gain something by destroying freedom or democracy, you can assume they will do so. To repeat the quote commonly misattributed to Thomas Jefferson, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The fact that lobbying/bribes are legal in the USA is a bigger threat to democracy. Companies being considered people whenever it's convenient is not really helping either.

</comment><comment><USER29> Yes it is but that's a moot point. Democracy is also a threat to capitalism and if we don't have the right check and balances in place democracy is a threat to minorities.

As the saying go, democracy is the worst kind of system besides all the other systems.

No system is perfect but a democracy based on capitalism is as good as we know how to make a system because it handles "irrational agents" fairly well.

The right way to approach this is to look at how is capitalism a threat to democracy and then make sure we have the proper mechanisms to deal with that.

</comment><comment><USER30> Would I get downvoted if I said democracy is a mere target a country can only use as it's goal? What I am saying is, there is no truly democratic country. To my best knowledge, in every supposed democratic country there are groups or individuals that yield far greater power than the average citizen when it comes to influence over the political process.

Imperialism has feudals,communism has party members, totalitarianism has oligarchs (and friends of the leadership) where as democracy has the 1% and their cronies.

Corruption is not an ideology but a moral and ethical failure. One can maintain an uncorrupt conscious a character of integrity (when it comes to politics at least) regardless of the system of government.

Money,power and a sense of security are all deceptively corrupting vices. Corruption is prevalent in any government that tolerates people who have failed to overcome those vices as politicians and public officials.

It's not capitalism or lack of it that is corrupting but rather a society that tolerates what it knows to be vile and filth in exchange for a bigger picture or in pessimistic complacency towards the ruling class.

</comment><comment><USER31> A good book that demonstrates how hyper-capitalism is inconsistent with Democratic rule is The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

</comment><comment><USER32> Short answer: No.

You can't have political freedom without economic freedom.

<comment><USER33> The problem here of cause is that economic freedom being linked to real world property is a limited good that can be owned and inherited.

And if a good can be owned and inherited it can be used restrict other peoples access to said good, And if economic freedom can be used to restrict freedom it can be a tool of oppression.

When Marx talked about how property was the inevitable bane of Smiths ideals he was not just hallucinating but basing his critique on the failed attempt to create equality and freedom through capitalism he was living in.

The problem is of cause that while Marx got the criticism right Engels failed to get the solution right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is interestign article, but sadly I must say that I have some very large problmes with it. The article is to large to go threw all the historical details.

I would argue the article is very nice example of what is sometimes called history as popular myth. Many historical periods or events have many different interpretations and one is favored depending on politics. This piece nicely collects all of these and makes a nice overall story out of it that then perfectly leads into the politcal system favored by all non-communist modern leftist, scandinavian capitalism. How could anybody disagree with this logical chain?

On thing that bugs me is that recessions are only blamed at those in power during the recession, while ignoring structural problems that existed before. It all only went bad in 1973, before that it was awesome, nothing happened before is responsable for the problems.

Also calling the economy of the 60s 'Keynsian' is just a slightly strange leftists phrase that is not really used by econnomists. Keynsianism has perticular technical defnition, it does not mean big government with regulation. Many this about this version of the 60s and how the left loves to call it 'Golden Age Capitalism' and then follows it up with 'but it was actually Socialism, look at the marginal tax rate'. This is a highly stylised version of events works thanks to selective selection of metrics.

Most economist agree that the Great Depression was caused by central bank mismangment. We know know this quite well, and people like R. G. Hawtrey (worlds most well known economsit back then) prediced the Great Deflation pretty exactly, with the correct explaition that we still use today. It had nothing to do with free markets, or the evil small government polices of the 20s. Much the same argument could be made about 2008.

Again, one can not take account of the whole article in single comment, but I would just point out that there are many different interpretations of these events. One could easly turn it around and tell a equally convincing story with the opposite point.

</comment><comment><USER35> No! At least not in the sense that its alternatives are.

</comment><comment><USER36> Democracy is a threat to capitalism.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC0ZB2/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC0ZB2/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

Basically, it explores how democracy and rule of law are fundamentally not reconcilable, especially when ethnic/religious tensions are inflamed. If an ethnic immigrant minority somehow gets influence (economic or political) people get rapidly irritated. Look at Jews and Chinese. The tyranny of the majority is not compatible with the rule of existing laws, when the existing laws can be changed with the majority.

</comment><comment><USER37> Jonah Goldberg has a good take on this in his new book.[1] His basic theory is that capitalism and democracy is not self-perpetuating (kind of like gains at the gym). Societies constantly have to defend and justify it in the face of new challenges and humans' innate tendency toward tribalism.

[1] [https://www.weeklystandard.com/adam-keiper/in-suicide-of- the...](https://www.weeklystandard.com/adam-keiper/in-suicide-of-the-west- jonah-goldberg-defends-capitalism-in-a-big-way)

</comment><comment><USER38> Are there any capitalist systems that don't tend towards hierarchical structures? Corporations are hierarchical to a great degree, but what would a system look like that incorporated the benefits of democracy into a capitalist entity?

In a democracy, people are in theory given a level playing field through voting that means that Bill Gates's vote is just as valuable as anyone else's.

In capitalism, people are given the ability to create value to their fullest extent. A single individual could find him or herself creating value outstripping that of thousands of people. Even on small teams, there are great deviations in contributed value. Capitalism is highly volatile, and I would argue the stronger and more natural system as compared to democracy.

Both democracy and capitalism are capable of generating evil and tyranny. The intent of democracy is to create a foundation for a stable society in situ. I think it's very possible to create a democracy that does not progress. On the other hand, capitalism is innately progressive via market competition and trade.

Technological progress and social progress seem to have an odd dance. The goal of technological progress is to create more fit capitalist entities which compete better in markets, but individual consumers are the end route fitness function. The goal of social progress is to elevate the standard of living for individuals, but it might not be easy to prove that democracy is the best known system for raising that standard of living, because so much of one's standard of living is defined by technological progress.

I would argue that capitalism is a more natural system than democracy, and thus more durable. A healthy democracy is an artificial system of good, and a perfect democracy cannot exist in the real world. Again and again, democracy has shown itself flimsy during difficult times.

<comment><USER20> > In capitalism, people are given the ability to create value to their fullest > extent.

In capitalism people have the ability to create value to the extent they have the capital to do so, a requirement which excludes most people from achieving what they could.

<comment><USER38> I don't mean to sound dismissive, but that's a knowledge problem. Many people have no idea how to procure capital, nor what capital procurement even entails. There are few viable routes to becoming an entrepreneur, and most people would agree that the most viable route is learning from other entrepreneurs.

For me, learning how to operate a business required a lot of reading, failure, and bad decisions. For someone who has easy access to the knowledge that I had to work hard to attain, becoming successful has a much shorter path. For someone who doesn't even have a map (many people in poor or socially disadvantaged communities), it requires a level of tenacity and drive that is very rare.

So while I agree with you that most people are excluded from maximizing their potential, I think the root cause is not a lack of capital, but a lack of knowledge about how to interact with capital.

<comment><USER20> > So while I agree with you that most people are excluded from maximizing > their potential, I think the root cause is not a lack of capital, but a lack > of knowledge about how to interact with capital.

And do you not think that this is a function of how much capital one has access to in the first place? Leaving aside the research showing how poverty affects development, those born to families with wealth will have both more knowledge of how to interact with capital and more access to capital in general.

You seem to be both acknowledging that there is a stacked deck and claiming that there is a level playing field where everyone can achieve their true potential.

<comment><USER38> There is no stacked deck. No one cheated because they have business savvy parents or friends. Everyone can go to busines school, or learn things the hard way. The knowledge is there, and the people who have great enough desire find it. Teaching it universally would be a great social good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The problem is of cause that capitalism is a fiction that have never existed in the real world, with the "movement" that calls itself capitalist being captured by the mercantilist it was supposed to oppose as soon as it started.

And mercantilism which is what most economist is promoting as capitalism is basically feudalism by economic means and as such pretty much inconsistent with democracy the second you have a zero sum economy(which the west will for the foreseeable future be facing), especially when you remember that feudalism rose out of the concept of hereditary property not divine right(that came much later) as most textbooks state.

Weather capitalism is compatible with the real world is a much bigger question that few economist dare to ask because the last one to do so ended up founding communism as a response to the complete failure of Smiths actual ideals to survive in the real world.

</comment><comment><USER39> Tldr;

The premises of the article is that the free market is to cruel for a democracy and that when it demands a sacrifice to greate people will tend to vote for populists

There is nothing in the article concerning corruption or propoganda.

</comment><comment> noir-york Is capitalism a threat to authoritarianism?

The Chinese Communist Party certainly was worried that capitalism would pose a threat. Turns out the Party is doing just fine.

"capitalism", i.e., a market-based economy is flexible and can be harnessed to serve whatever purposes a society desires.

So, no capitalism is not a threat to democracy, or communism for that matter.

Let's not forgot that capitalism is a recent invention. Kings and emperors were imposing their rule on their poor subjects without the help of free market economies for most of human history.

Right wing resurgence is back because the parties of the left forgot who gave birth to them - the working class. "Working class" is anachronistic now. The children of the working class became middle class. The new working class is now the middle class, increasingly being hollowed out.

What's to stop authoritarianism:

1\. remove proportional voting. Coaltions allow parties to divide up the electorate. On the other hand, forcing parties to win 50%+1 of the vote forces parties to take broad-based policies that appeal to wide swathes of the electorate.

2\. Invest in a social safety net. Education, healthcare and affordable housing promote social mobility, and more importantly, give peace of mind to those in the middle class who are afraid of losing the gains made by their parents.

3\. Campaign finance reform. Its easier to turn out the vote and raise funding when parties turn to identity politics because nothing is more personal - <USER2> fires one up more - than appeal to one's identity.

Identity politics is cancer on democracy. Both left and right play the game and identity politics should be banned in a liberal (the John Stuart Mill kind) democracy.

4\. Ban _targeted_ political advertising. A liberal democracy needs a shared public space, and a discussion among all voters. _Targeted_ political advertising breaks up that public space into millions of shards. Another option could be to force parties to post publicly all political adverts for everyone to see.

I ought, indeed, need to know what a party's policies are regarding pensioners or education even though I am neither a pensioner nor have children. Why? Because my taxes will be funding such items.

5\. The left needs to be remember its origins. Sounds simple eh?

6\. Finally, we need to drop the left-right way of identifying policies. It reduces policies which impact people and society into a basic for/against divisive manner. There is a better way.

Enough for today :)

</comment><comment><USER40> Unchecked capitalism and barely regulated monopolies? Absolutely. But that's a less flashy headline.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm disappointed in this thread. Not the post itself, but the discussion, most of which seems 1) utterly divorced from the article, 2) largely (and on several sides) reduced to ideological rhetoric and axe-grinding, singularly both uninformed and uninformative, 3) voluable (approaching 200 comments as I write) and far more noise than signal.

It's about whaat I'd expect if you'd asked a diverse group of 1550s Europeans to civilly diiscuss Catholocism vs. Reformation.

(I've spent a fair bit of time researching the history of the notion of free speech. Among northern Europeans, there's generally been a specific carve-out _against_ free speech to Papists, as they were frequently referred to....)

There are only four references to the key individual within the article, Karl Polanyi. Three of those reference the lack of reference to him. (I've just added a fifth reference, though also of a nonproductive meta-commentary.)

There are several likely reasons for this. One is that "capitalism" and "democracy" are themselves both poorly defined, and cultural shibboleths: signifiers of group affinity far more than semantically functional terms. I'd read economics myself ay uni and would have been pressed to give aa coherent definition until relatively recently. Even now, that's more by calling up a definition, or set of definitions, than something that comes readily to mind.

E.J. Mishan was a Chicago-trained, though very much _not_ a Chicago-scool, economist of the 2nd half of the 20th century. He examined, and questioned, many fundamental precepts of economics, including the meaning and definitions of "free market". (Close to though not identical with "capitalism".)

Mishan notes that "free market" may refer to one or more of the following:

1\. The private ownership of capital, or productiive (nonhuman) assets

2\. The private management of economic enterprise

3\. The decentralization of economic enterprise

4\. Competitive enterprise

5\. A price system

6\. A market system

He also notes that these definitions my either rely on, or oppose, one another. E.g., pricate ownership (1) tends to centralisation, opposing decentralisation (3).

[http://booksc.org/ireader/28521331](http://booksc.org/ireader/28521331)

[https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1975.11503319](https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1975.11503319)

Other authors, of late Naomi Wolf in _Shock Doctrine_ , have pointed out the affinity of free-market advocates, Milton Friedman in particular, with authoritarian and genocidal dictators. Similar parallels were drawn in the 1930s with fascist Italy and Germany, and you can find similar sentiments in the works of J.S. Mill and Adam Smith.

But for discussion, HN can and should do far better.

</comment><comment><USER42> It's not at all an academic argument but a critical issue being resolved right now; the preference for capitalism over democracy is openly argued and put into practice:

* You may recall Peter Thiel's argument that democracy and "freedom" (i.e., his freedom to act as a capitalist) are incompatible, and therefore we should limit the former. Thiel is close to the U.S. president, and his people are advisors in the White House and other branches.

[https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter- thiel/educatio...](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter- thiel/education-libertarian)

* Also, the recent U.S. Secretary of State, as well as other members of the administration, openly said the U.S.'s foreign policy should prioritize "economic interests" over democracy and human rights.

[https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tillerson-pushing-human- righ...](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tillerson-pushing-human-rights- abroad-creates-obstacles/story?id=47190743)

* Finally, as much as HN doesn't like to discuss this issue, we also can't bury our heads in the sand: The nationalist and racist politics in the U.S. are also anti-democracy,[0] and by devaluing democracy they open the door to capitalism-over-democracy. Probably not coincidentally, the nationalists and the capitalism-over-democracy people (like Thiel and Tillerson; let's call them oligarchs) ally in the coalition that supports Trump and the GOP. For example, the GOP actively works the limit voting, the foundation of democracy, by people they don't like.

That coalition, of the nationalists/racists and the oligarchs, are a threat to democracy in the U.S. (and probably elsewhere). It's only an anecdote, but a wealthy person whom I had respected intellectually told me, 'I voted for Trump and I'd vote for him again - I'm a businessperson and business is good'. Their argument is implicitly framed around the idea that capitalism is all that matters.

And I'll add that it's very short-sighted: You only need to look around the world and see that democracy breeds economic prosperity like nothing else in the history of humanity. The democracies are all the wealthiest countries in the world; the corrupt oligarchies are all poorer, and had been for millennia before democracy. In fact, the wealth of corrupt oligarchies today comes from selling to wealthy democrats and profiting on the peaceful international order and world trade established by the democrats. The world of corrupt oligarchies (and monarchies, etc.), before democracy, was poorer by orders of magnitude.

...

[0] Why are nationalism and racism anti-democracy? The necessary foundation of democracy is universal human rights; for example the founders of the United States made it the basis of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men". On a practical basis, if the other person doesn't have rights then neither do you; if it's ok for someone to take away their vote then why shouldn't they take away yours? Nationalism and racism say that rights are not universal at all, but that they depend on nationality and race.

</comment><comment><USER43> Of course it is! That's like asking, is monarchy a threat to democracy? Capitalist corporations are basically just little kingdoms.

<comment><USER43> I mean the very first corporations weren't even _little_ kingdoms, they were big ones like the east India trading company, which operated as quasi sovereign states. And they still operate that way, just on a smaller scale. If you think we are currently living in an age of democracy right now you're crazy or just not paying attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Democracy is a threat to capitalism.

</comment><comment><USER45> Capitalism - no. Greed and lust for money - yes.

</comment><comment><USER46> for all it's ills, capitalism is very anti-fragile in the sense that regions that that fail (perhaps even because of capitalism) become cannibalized and therefore stabilized by the greater system.

It may not provide much security for individuals, but it is very effective at self-perpetuating the scheme.

</comment><comment><USER47> The subtitle:

> The idea that authoritarianism attracts workers harmed by the free market, > ___which emerged when the Nazis were in power_ __, has been making a > comeback.

Makes me disappointed for the state of discourse that occurs today. The article itself is better than the subtitle made me infer - ending essentially with a nuanced 'No'.

But these transparent attempts to make you form an emotional response to an issue by eliciting images of Nazi Germany I find borderline disrespectful.

</comment><comment><USER48> Unregulated capitalism, perhaps. However, I don't think the US has capitalism (well-regulated or otherwise) today.

Today we have a system where gains are privatized, losses are socialized, and market-participants can coerce their elected officials to tilt the market in their favor. This is not capitalism.

<comment><USER49> Capitalism is simply the private ownership of resources and production for profit. We have that. We could certainly do it better, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> No, but greed is.

<comment><USER25> Can you even have capitalism without greed? Greed is just a pejorative term for self-interest, which is a core assumption in the treatise of capitalism. It can't exist without it.

It just needs to be limited. You can't have lassis-faire capitalism forever because the people who are most successful will change the initial conditions and it will no longer be lassis-faire. So you need some kind of control outside the free market. The free market alone is not corruption-proof in any way.

<comment><USER51> > Greed is just a pejorative term for self-interest

Greed is a _correctly_ pejorative term for pursuing power and wealth _beyond_ what people actually need to live well enough. Self-interest prior to reaching that point is not greed.

Capitalism is defined as _private_ ownership of means of production and core resources. It doesn't inherently require greed.

I agree with your second paragraph, btw.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> > _Basically there are two solutions," Polanyi wrote in 1935. "The extension > of the democratic principle from politics to economics, or the abolition of > the democratic 'political sphere' altogether." In other words, socialism or > fascism._

This article is predicated on using _democracy_ as a synonym for _constitutional representation_ , which it isn't.

Democracy literally means rule by the people: majority rule. If you can't get married because you're gay, that is democracy at work: the majority doesn't like some aspect of your life, and that's that.

Democracy can be _de facto_ a form of fascism.

<comment> noir-york Indeed, which is why modern democracies, or at least Western ones, don't describe themselves as democracies (except only as shorthand), but republican liberal* democracies.

* liberal here meaning political liberal (JS Mill liberalism), and not what is understood by "liberal" in US politics.

<comment><USER21> The UK is a western democracy and does not describe itselg as a republican anything, though opponents to certain elements of the current constitution describe themselves that way.

There is an overlap between democratic republics (or, to use the less common phrasing, "republican democracies") and limited representative democracies, but they aren't the same.

<comment> noir-york The UK is what is called an aristocratic republic* as it retains the Roman Republic's setup: - Sovereign / House of Lords (Senate) / Lower house.

The US Founding Fathers copied England, and Rome's model but replaced the sovereign with a President.

Representative democracies are necessarily republics - although some, like my country, skip the upper house. Rome introduced consuls / republican model because the population was too large, unlike the Greek polis, to be politically manageable. Rome of course was not a democracy.

*or monarchic. I am away from my books so cannot confirm exactly the term. Sorry.

<comment><USER21> > The UK is what is called an aristocratic republic* as it retains the Roman > Republic's setup: - Sovereign / House of Lords (Senate) / Lower house.

Republican Rome was distinguished from both preceding and succeeding Roman governments by not having a sovereign head.

<comment> noir-york Yep, Augustus didn't like sharing power :D He must have felt guilty about it though because the Empire post-republic tried to keep up the appearance of Rome as Republic, if not in substance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> This reads like an onion article. I'll take free market capitalism and any government over socialism. These people represent a kind of "democracy" that wants to threaten Capitalism, which is the real danger.

</comment><comment><USER54> Seizing the means of the people to rebel is the real tyranny

</comment><comment><USER21> Capitalism isn't a _threat_ to democracy since the main distribution of power is by capitalist elite rule with democratic institutions constrained by capitalist economic power structure, and has been for the whole history of modern democratic political institutions.

The article might more properly ask the question "is capitalism with fig-leaf democracy inherently unstable"?

</comment><comment><USER55> The only way to fix democracy is to make voting mandatory, but the elites in power have no motive to change the system. In fact they have all the reason to keep the status-quo. The current version of democracy is a treat to democracy itself.

<comment><USER38> It's an interesting question, and it's commonly debated in the US whether voting should be mandatory. It's been debated since the 1700s whether all eligible voters should be forced to vote.

But there are systems in place where voting is mandatory. Wouldn't studying the political knowledge of these countries in comparison to countries with similar socioeconomic demographics allow you to determine if mandatory voting leads to more effective democracies?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> "Is [Abstraction A] a threat to [Abstraction B]?"

No. Human beings who put money and control of land and resources over and above the welfare of other human beings are a threat to us all and always have been.

I wish sociopathic hypergreedy control freaks were viewed the same way we perceive pedophiles instead of being rewarded.

<comment><USER25> I'm confused as to why you think that just because two concepts are abstract they can't interact with each other. How do you explain that logic?

Do we claim that capitalism cannot produce hyper-greedy sociopaths? Because I would argue that it distills those people better than most systems. We need some form of modified capitalism which has some checks and balances. We did have that system for a long while, but the controlling agencies got captured by private interests and we can all plainly see the risk involved there.

But it's pure capitalism. People who say pure capitalism would have an even playing field discount the possibility that the winners on that level playing field would change the playing field to benefit them forever. What is keeping the playing field level? Not the market. The market doesn't limit systemic drift.

<comment><USER56> My point is that abstracting practical human evil to an "ism" removes responsibility from the actors who commit the evil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Why do so many people put democracy on a pedestal? Majority rules scares the shit out of me. We don't need what the majority wants. We need protection for minorities. The greatest minority being the individual. So long as a person isn't physically harming others leave them alone and let them be. Mobocracy, a majority without limits, is worse than a relatively steady and stable dictator.

<comment><USER51> Democracy means rule by the people. It does NOT require that majority-rule be the mechanism (that is itself about the worst mechanism for democracy, second only to minority-rule).

<comment><USER57> Thank you for replying. Thank you for clarification and correcting my defaulting to "Democracy is sometimes referred to as "rule of the majority".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Well, I will not subscribe to the new yourkers for just an article, but my anwser wold be hell no. Intervencion of govern in the free market.... maybe.

<comment><USER59> I'd argue that the primary interventions of government in the free market involve the creation and support of currency, and the provision of property rights. It's hard for me to imagine a market of any significant size without those things. The absence of government intervention may not be what capitalism wants.

<comment><USER58> I'm ok with govern creating a small set of rules and enforcing them. But as litle as possible. Specially in types of business that aren't vital to population. I can understand certain rules like in insurance companies of some types of banking services.

I'm not ok with intervencions, like the banks bailout of 2008, the the goverment just save banks that should have break. This kindo f intervention isn't fair form most of the market, and should be avoided.

<comment><USER60> >This kindo f intervention isn't fair form most of the market, and should be avoided.

Even if it means a global market collapse and depression?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Can Our Ballots Be Both Secret and Secure? - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-future-of-democracy/can-our-ballots-be-both-secret-and-secure <comment><USER2> The inefficiency of in person paper voting is a feature.

It means that large scale fraud is extremely difficult due to the labor required. This is a good thing. Hundreds of thousands of dispersed voting locations means that to pull off a "hack" you'd need to hack thousands or perhaps 10s of thousands of locations all with their own details.

In a digital voting system, you'd need perhaps to find a flaw in 1 system. The centralized one.

I don't want digital voting. I want anonymous, and inefficient in person voting where the issues are small and localized.

<comment><USER3> But this same lack of efficiency allows governments to make it harder _to_ vote. Eliminate voting locations in regions where those who vote against your party are more likely. Move voting to days that the less-powerful can't take off from their jobs. Paper votes "go missing" because there's reason to believe the box of them contained too many that those in power didn't like.

Making voting _hard_ makes the system ripe for abuse, and that's exactly what we see happen all the time.

What we need is a system that is efficient _and safe_. There are cryptographic voting systems in which the government publishes the entire result; everyone can see that their own vote (only) was counted appropriately; anyone can see that the overall vote was fairly counted; empowered auditors can randomly audit to ensure all votes are real. _That_ is far superior to the existing, corruptible system.

Edit: adding some conditions on the crypto voting systems.

<comment><USER4> Why is voting with paper hard?

Voting happens on a day where nearly nobody has to work.

People who can't leave their home, or are not home on the day you can vote, can still vote, they just request a mail-in vote card.

<comment><USER5> Where do you live? Voting isn't generally a holiday in the United States and is often on a weekday.

<comment><USER6> Early voting is available over the weekends in many places. A weird amount of people don't realize it's a thing and believe they have to go on election day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Since 2018, as part of a program called Defending Democracy, Benaloh has > been working on voting software that attempts to solve the problem of trust > in secret-ballot elections.

No. Stop. Listen, it's possible to write secure voting software that a domain- expert software engineer understands, and a general software engineer can understand. That's not the problem.

But for voting, that is not enough. The entire voting system has to be easily understandable by everyone in society, in order for society to trust the system.

Where I'm from, all voting is done with papers and envelopes and urns and seals, and with people having eyes on the process at all times. And the most important thing to realize is that this process is infinitely parallellizable, so getting election-night preliminary results isn't hard, even though every single vote is manually counted. You just need enough people to count the votes.

<comment><USER8> No one gets that day off, and voting closes before the line outside is gone.

It is _disturbing_ how much voter disenfranchisement is allowed in this system.

<comment><USER9> Every workplace I've been at allowed you to leave briefly to go cast a vote.

Sounds like you worked for some really disenfranchising companies.

<comment><USER10> A majority of people don't have the luxury of choosing their employer.

<comment><USER9> Lincoln abolished slavery years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How are mail-in ballots protected from fraud? I keep hearing that fraud is not a problem, but I'm wondering (a) how do we know there is little fraud; and (b) what mechanisms make it safe from fraud?

<comment><USER12> Mail-in ballots are linked to a voter permit (outer envelope) which serves the purpose of maintaining the pollbook, that is, ensuring that each voter casts only one vote. This prevents ballot stuffing.

Mail-in ballots are sealed in a tamper evident fashion inside of the permit, to prevent modification. Because opening the envelope would probably damage it, a duplicate enveloped (forged permit) would need to be produced to modify the ballot. In most cases a duplicate ballot would also be needed, which presents its own obstacle, although ballots are not generally intended to be protected against forgery.

The postal service is backed by a particularly strong set of criminal laws which generally make a felony to interfere with the mail. This is of course on top of laws protecting the voting system from tampering.

The outer envelope (permit) is a sworn statement and signing for someone else's ballot would be perjury, a felony, in addition to other laws around voting that likely exist in the state.

None of these measure are perfect, but combined they make vote-by-mail fraud difficult to achieve on a meaningful scale. Remember that, to be effective, voter fraud needs to be successfully committed not once, but many times. The difficulty of each case and general history of harsh prosecution of small-time fraud creates a significant disincentive to try.

<comment><USER13> Sadly this only works if you have a Post Office, which we in the US may not have in November.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ballots don't need to be secret, they just need to be anonymous. If you get rid of the secret constraint, it becomes fairly easy to produce a trustworthy voting system:

1\. Immediately before identifying at the polling location, each voter takes a nondescript strip of paper out of a large container of numerous strips of paper, each with a unique identifier printed on it. (No one but the voter knows which identifier they took. No one can force a specific identifier.)

2\. The voter fills in the identifier on a Scantron-style paper ballot. (Easily digitized, with a paper trail.) The ballot box scans the unique identifier and spits back out out any ballot with an identifier that wasn't generated for that polling location. (Ensuring no one can force a specific identifier.)

3\. A list containing the entirety of every ballot is published publicly, including the unique identifier. (The voter can look up their ballot later. It becomes difficult to coerce a voter because they can say any one of the published ballots is theirs.)

4\. A list of names of people who voted is published publicly. (Registered voters who didn't vote can check if a ballot was cast in their name. This is already done in many places.)

You can also have mail-in ballots with user-generated statistically-unique identifiers (requiring only several rolls of a die, so anyone can do it at home), but you can't prevent voter coercion that way.

<comment><USER15> _> The voter fills in the identifier on a Scantron-style paper ballot._

The voter will mess this up a disturbing fraction of the time. It will be rejected. The voter will try again, possibly have it rejected again, give up, and go on Twitter to complain about the new system.

Also, I can go to vote, surreptitiously take two strips of paper, use one, pocket the other. I coerce my spouse into using that one, and pocket the one they took.

 _> It becomes difficult to coerce a voter because they can say any one of the published ballots is theirs._

Maybe for simple ballots. A question including e.g. a ranking of ten candidates has about 3.6 million possible configurations -- more if undervotes or other ties are permitted. The voter can be coerced to fill this out in a specific way to self-identify, and then vote in a prescribed way on another question.

edit: Of course, _this_ vulnerability already exists: the voter could be given that same instruction. An observer of the ballot counting process can tell if the correct ballot was cast.

<comment><USER14> Good points, though they're rather at odds. If you assume voters will mess up their ballots that frequently then the voter being coerced can just find a ballot that's close to what they were coerced to do and say they messed up the rest.

No way to prevent surreptitiously taking more than one strip of paper comes to mind. Someone should be observing the voters take the strips of paper to ensure only one is taken, but that doesn't prevent sleight of hand. But if there are mail-in ballots, you've already basically given up on voter coercion anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Like with a lot of political things in the US I strongly believe that none of the decisions makers really want to have a system that works impartially. They just want to have an advantage for their side because it's about "winning" at any cost no matter how destructive it is for the country.

Otherwise I can't explain the problems this supposedly developed country has. I am from Germany and have never heard anybody having doubts about the integrity of the system there. If the US wanted to have a system that works they could look around and see how it get countries do to. But it seems they don't want to have such a system.

</comment><comment><USER17> "VotingWorks is a non-partisan non-profit building a secure, affordable, and simple voting system. Our vote-by-mail solution lets you scale vote-by-mail quickly and affordably. Our risk-limiting audit software ensures votes cast on any paper-based system are correctly tabulated. Our voting machine creates paper ballots that voters can directly verify. Our source code is available on GitHub. You can help by making a tax-deductible donation, joining our team, or reaching out."

[https://voting.works](https://voting.works)

</comment><comment><USER18> As others have pointed out, digital voting systems can be hacked, exploited, or otherwise derailed from centralized location. They also can contain subtle software errors.

Paper ballots can have problems like we saw in Florida (hanging chads).

When I was growing up, we had big mechanical voting machines. I have no idea how common (or uncommon) these were in different parts of the country. The machine opens up and has a set of retractable curtains. You walk through the open curtains and then pull a big lever that closes the curtains behind you. Then you vote by flipping mechanical switches for the candidate (or yes/no for policy ballot). When you're done voting, you reverse the big lever. This action increments the machine counters based on your votes and opens the curtains for you to exit. Once the polls close, the polling folks simply sum up the counters across all the machines in the polling station.

The downside is that the machines are big and heavy to store and move. I'm sure they're not cheap for the initial purchase. However, they're efficient for tallying yet very difficult to hack. In my opinion, they're the best overall voting mechanism.

<comment><USER19> Agree with all.

 _" digital voting systems can be hacked, exploited, or otherwise..."_

Paper mediated systems have visible failure modes. Missing ballots. Spoiled ballots. Etc.

Black box voting systems fail silently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why can't PKI be used?

If I sign a vote with my private key, and my public key is used exactly once, and is registered with the electoral body, and a list is printed of signed votes by candidate, I can validate that my key was used to sign a vote for the person / issue I voted for, and we can also know that everyone only voted once.

Key distribution could be based on the current registration system we have in place now, and you could use the key they send you to change your key pair so the state can't forge your vote. One could even automate this, even with an open source app we could all inspect.

It seems conceptually simple.

<comment><USER14> 1\. Whoever issued you the key pair can know which vote is yours.

2\. Someone can coerce you to vote a specific way by forcing you to provide them with your private key.

<comment><USER20> 1\. Can't the state already know who voted for what right now? That seems like a nonissue.

2\. Someone can also force you to give them your mail in ballot. How is this different?

<comment><USER21> > Can't the state already know who voted for what right now? That seems like a > nonissue.

No. That is one of the most fundamental features of our system. In the secrecy of the voting booth, you can make your voice heard with no consequences to you.

<comment><USER22> And they can flip the vote as soon as you leave the polling booth, or not even record it, and you'll never know. Just "trust the system"

<comment><USER21> You can actually put the ballot in the box. You or someone you trust can stay as an observer until the voting is done. You or someone you trust can watch as the ballots are removed from the voting box and counted.

I think it has been recommended before, if you want to see this, sign up to be a poll observer. You will get to see the whole process.

<comment><USER22> [https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud](https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud)

Thousands of issues of voter fraud, and these are only the instances where they got caught. Polling officials are usually the ones that are responsible for mass voter manipulation, just look at what happened in Iowa and Georgia.

Poll watchers are appointed by political parties. It is not something anyone can sign up for and get to do. Monitors also do not directly prevent electoral fraud.

<comment><USER23> > It is not something anyone can sign up for and get to do.

Looks like you've found the problem. Of course you don't get the benefits of a public election if the election isn't public.

<comment><USER22> Yet I'm being downvoted for pointing it out

<comment><USER23> The joy of discussing local to statewide policies on an international forum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The Oregon vote by mail system lets you get a notification when your ballot is received by the counting center. I'm not sure exactly how it works but the counting might be observable from that point.

<comment><USER9> I bet it also tells you when the mail ballot someone swapped for yours was received.

<comment><USER25> Oregonian here! My signature is on file with the state, and both an OCR system and a human look at my signature on the ballot to make sure it matches. Additionally, my ballot has a barcode on it and a security weave, so that a "counterfeit" ballot and envelope would have to have come from inside the ballot-production system; loss-prevention techniques can be used to track down any stolen envelopes. Finally, the attack would have to come from inside the postal system as well, because only post officers and voting officials touch my ballot. In my specific case, I can even drop my ballot directly at a ballot box and not have to post it.

If you have any evidence of widespread voting fraud in Oregon, please show it. Otherwise, no, we're not interested in your attempts to denigrate a convenient and reliable voting system; it reeks of antidemocratic sentiment and I don't see why we should tolerate it.

<comment><USER9> Lots of incidents to prevent me from feeling trusting enough, irregardless of your accusing insult:

[https://www.ktuu.com/content/news/Stolen-Vote-by-Mail- ballot...](https://www.ktuu.com/content/news/Stolen-Vote-by-Mail-ballot- packages-found-damaged-and-wet-in-the-snow-477165303.html)

[https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/04/08/city-calls-for-usps- in...](https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/04/08/city-calls-for-usps- investigation-into-missing-ballots/)

"Even in Oregon, where VBM processes and integration with the postal service are well-tuned, over 1,000 ballots were lost in a January 2010 election." \- [http://iiisci.org/Journal/CV$/sci/pdfs/HPA468KX.pdf](http://iiisci.org/Journal/CV$/sci/pdfs/HPA468KX.pdf)

<comment><USER25> Your first two links are for Alaska and Wisconsin. I'll agree that the latter is clearly not experiencing fair voting; their legislators need to step up and be better. The third, the survey, is quite interesting. It shows two problems: First, people are filling out other household members' ballots; and second, ballots get lost in the post, usually on the way out to voters.

There's nothing that can be done about that first problem. Being pressured to vote in a certain way is as old as voting, as are laws against pressuring others. The survey claims about 5% of voters are so pressured in Oregon, which is a dreadful but realistic number. Worse, though, it says that about 2.5% of ballot signatures are forged. We could do better at detecting forged signatures, but since stylometry is already such an imprecise art, it's probably not great to rely further on signatures. Ultimately, though, forcing people to the polls doesn't solve this problem at all; it just hides the problem behind layers of people telling each other behind closed doors to vote in certain ways.

Edit: Oh, right, and this survey's source doesn't work. They link to KVAL, a real news station in Eugene, but their link is dead and has never been seen by the Internet Archive. I have no problem believing that humans are so horrible to each other that the rate of voter intimidation is over 5%, but hard data would be nice.

That second problem, though, where ballots are lost on the way to and from voters? That's easy to fix. Just have a notification system that tells voters when their ballot has been posted. And that brings us back to the top of the thread; in Oregon, one can sign up to get text notifications about ballots. Checking my phone, I have notifications going back to 2016, in pairs; the first message is along the lines of:

> This is Multnomah County Elections, your ballot for the Month Year General > Election has been sent, look for it soon in your mailbox!

And the second is like:

> This is Multnomah County Elections, your ballot for the Month Year General > Election has been accepted and will be counted.

If I don't receive my ballot within a few days after that first text, or I don't receive that second text within a few weeks of voting, then I know that something is wrong and I can go to the elections office to try again. This hasn't ever happened to me personally. Note that, because voting by mail takes place over several weeks, there is time to remediate missing ballots!

I hope this was enlightening. And if you don't trust this system, then you can always go to pick up and hand-deliver your ballots or go to a poll. But on the whole, I'd just as much rather that you didn't vote in Oregon at all; if you don't live here, then politely leave us alone and let us vote in our preferred style.

<comment><USER9> > if you don't live here, then politely leave us alone and let us vote in our > preferred style.

I don't live there. However, since Oregon VBM topic was brought up in an international forum, I assumed (incorrectly by your standard) that it was open for discussion.

<comment><USER25> If you want discussion, then discuss things. So far, all you've done is make a couple snide remarks, one about how Oregonians must suffer so much voter fraud, and one about how Oregonians must not be fairly represented if they're not electing Republican governors; as well as throw some links into the mix and wait for others to try to figure out what you meant.

You don't really seem interested in discussion, but in taking cheap shots at cultural practices of which you neither understand nor approve.

<comment><USER9> At least I'm not taking cheap shots at people in the discussion.

Edit: And furthermore, you still haven't satisfactorily addressed the concerns I expressed regarding VBM.

Which is a topic of national concern right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I would write a comment, but this sums it up.

[https://xkcd.com/2030/](https://xkcd.com/2030/)

<comment><USER27> I agree that designing an objectively reliable online voting system is very difficult. But at the same time I think that in principle it can be done. However, in my opinion the current unavailability of such a reliable system is not the largest issue with online voting.

Instead, it is its potential for giving the people with power more ability to control and enforce the voting behavior of the people over which they have some kind of influence.

For example, a boss can offer a bonus to employees who would verifiably (e.g. under supervision) cast an online vote according to the "company's recommendation". Or a landlord can say that the rent will be raised next month unless the tenant votes under the landlord's supervision and according to the landlord's preferences.

Such practices probably exist today as well. But the difference is that in the physical voting system, even the people who are being pressured to vote in a certain way are in the end required to be alone and behind a privacy screen while casting their vote. So, even if they have been forced to promise to vote in a certain way, they eventually have the freedom to vote as they like without having to fear that their actual voting behavior will be revealed.

That freedom originates from the requirement to cast a vote in private. Availability of online voting removes such a requirement.

<comment><USER28> Then the system should be designed to let you avoid such demands:

\- you vote once under supervision and another time later in private. Only your last vote counts

\- you are given multiple private keys and only one of them is real. If you vote using any other one, the system behaves as if your vote was recorded, but actually doesn't count it

<comment><USER27> Yes, that would help in theory. But in practice it would only change the way how the people inducing the pressure would verify that the votes have in fact been cast according to their preferences.

For instance, if voting multiple times is allowed and only the last vote counts, they would require the people to vote during the last 10 minutes of the polling period and afterwards they would withhold their ID card with the signing capability from them until the polling is closed.

If there are multiple private keys to choose from, they would require people to at first prove which one is usable for this particular election by checking it with the issuing authority. The owner must have been given this information in some verifiable form at some time, so the demand will simply extend to include that information as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> German physicist Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that the more precisely the position of some particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be predicted from initial conditions, and vice versa. (Edited Definition from wiki)

I want to posit that secrecy and security have the same relationship as the uncertainty principle ascribes to electrons.

</comment><comment><USER30> That's awfully complicated, compared to systems with backup printers.

</comment><comment><USER31> Aren't they already? Or are we having this efficiency debate again?</comment>