They've weaponised complexity

When people's wishes clash with vested interests it's the vested interests (aka 'the deep state') that win every time. Our political systems are too complex, arcane or corrupt for ordinary people to stand a chance. One result is obvious: ever-rising income and wealth inequality. It's been seen as a problem for years, but where are we now? From yesterday's New York Times:

[T]he 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group, according to newly released data. The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You, David Leonhardt, 'New York Times', 6 October

It's not only the US. Here Martin Lukacs writes about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

In late 2018, this avowed friend of labor legislated away the right to strike of a postal union that wanted safer working conditions; this champion of equality gave profitable multinational corporations giant hand-outs, maintaining multibillion-dollar subsidies to oil companies and granting $10.5 billion in tax breaks on the heels of similar measures by Trump; and this advocate of women’s rights set a record selling weapons to the theocratic, patriarchal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, even as their war on Yemen escalated. Private wealth continued to soar, without any discernible benefit to the public good. Much-needed universal social programs like childcare or the extension of healthcare to cover the costs of medicines in Canada—which are the second highest of any country—never materialized. Justin Trudeau, Liberal Let-Down, Martin Lukacs, NYR daily, 7 October

Voting makes little difference. And, while we don't really know the intentions of the people in power, I suspect that whoever they are doesn't make much difference either. The vested interests are too powerful. They have perpetuated a policymaking process that effectively excludes influence from people outside their exalted circle. They have weaponised the complexity and obscurity of our systems of government for selfish ends.

They can get away with this because our political discourse centres on sound-bites, personality, and image. Actual policymaking is an entirely distinct process: much of it focuses on the structures and funding of government bodies, law and regulation; all of which are opaque to non-professionals - which is to say, ordinary people. The public. The rest of us. The only people who now really understand policymaking are those who are paid to do so, and the only people who influence it are those who have the millions of dollars necessary to pay them.You might even think the system has been specifically designed to keep ordinary citizens out of it.

So I suggest that policymaking instead focus on outcomes, rather than the alleged means of achieving them. Outcomes that are meaningful to ordinary people, so that we can engage with discussion about them, their funding, their relative importance. Such discussion would be more accessible than current policymakers' emphasis on legal pathways, funding arrangements, institutional structures and composition, and other arcana.

Meaningful outcomes: they form one essential element of the Social Policy Bond idea. The other is the injection of market incentives into their achievement: rewarding those who achieve our goals according to their efficiency in actually achieving them. The idea might sound outlandish at first hearing: handing over the solution of our social and environmental problems to investors. But our goals would be discussed and articulated by government - something that democratic governments are quite good at doing. Only their achievement would be subject to the market, which economic theory and all the evidence suggest is the most efficient way of allocating society's scarce resources. No doubt the Social Policy Bond idea could do with some discussion and refinement. But the real question is: what is the alternative? To continue as we are doing, where the gap between vested interests and ordinary people grows ever wider, risks, in my view, social collapse.

For more about Social Policy Bonds see the Social Policy Bonds homepage.