Motivations - RichardAlexanderGreen/WorldGovGame GitHub Wiki

Our democratic governments are defective at many levels. That does not mean we should replace democracy. It means we should study those defects to find the means of removing or mitigating the systemic causes.

• Neighborhood:
  Neighborhood forums lack organization and meaning. They are practically non-existent. Neighborhood concerns are delegated to the municipal level.
• Municipal ( township / city / school board ):
  Municipal boundaries are generally arbitrary. Municipal funding bears little relationship to the municipal constituency. Funding usually comes from property taxes. Such taxes are not coupled to the benefit streams or even costs. Several local municipal governments have gone bankrupt due to these kinds of structural defects.
• Metro ( metropolitan area ):
  Our Michigan State constitution provides for county, not metro government. But, the county boundaries are historic relics. Ad hoc committees attempt to serve the needs of the metro constituency. But their ad hoc, non-official nature makes them slow and ineffective. This is also typical of most other states (USA).
  Many metropolitan areas cross state boundaries. The New York Metro is in three states and who knows how many municipal, county, and state agencies are affected.
• Regional ( connected metropolitan areas ):
  In the USA, the only thing resembling regional administrations are the state governments. This almost works because state boundaries bear some relationship to geography. But when these boundaries are waterways, the jurisdictions can be counter-productive.
• National ( regional areas and substantial agricultural areas with a common culture ):
  A common language seems to be the main "glue" that holds a nation together. Diversity in language seems to create divisions that go beyond the ability to communicate quickly. The question I would ask is what is the best way of choosing system boundaries when it comes to planning and administering large scale infrastructure?
• World (trans-national agreements and initiatives)
  • The United Nations, NATO, and other confederations are ineffective due to insuffient authority, deliberate vetoes, and inadequate funding. While inter-national wars are illegal, both the United States and the Soviet Union have routinely ignored that law and invaded other nations using various pretexts.
  • Civil wars are not covered by the UN Charter and many are in-progress at any point in time. The interests of arms manufacturers seem to trump adult sanity. Major nations use these proxy wars as testing grounds for their war products, and war-making methodologies.
  • Global issues, such as over-fishing, over-population, environmental pollution, monetary stability and the prevention of epidemics are hamstrung by out-dated concepts of national interest and mercantile economics.

Our governments, regardless of scale, seem to suffer common ills:

• Insolvency:
  Funding is not accurately coupled to costs. In too many cases, representatives create commitments but fail to assure those commitments are funded.
• Economic Transfers:
  Governments tax whatever they can lay their hands on. The tax has no relationship to the services provided to the sector paying the tax. Taxpayers are dissatisfied with good reason.
• Free Riders:
  Many practices create "free-riders". Some people extract benefits without ever having to pay into the system. Corporations and industry groups routinely use the government to externalize costs. Example: Pollution clean-up is paid for by the general public rather than the corporation or industrial group that permitted it.
• Corruption:
  • From what I read, it appears that everyone everywhere believes that their government is corrupt to some extent. The difference from place to place and jurisdiction to jurisdiction has to do with the degree of corruption not the fact of corruption.
  • Corruption takes many forms. A representative can be coerced into voting for something that the populace he represents would not agree to. An administrator can bend the rules. An manager can divert resources. Phantom employees divert payroll checks to a manager or party. A purchasing agent can rig purchases. Front-line service people can deny or delay services.
  • Coercion can take many forms. Bribes in the form of gifts or campaign contributions are prevalent. Relatives may be hired. Prices may be "special." Incumbents may have their opponents arrested or harassed. Agencies may vary their levels of collaboration. Extortion is relatively unknown only because it is secret.