The problem is in the US we don’t have real political parties that stand for particular interests and values. Yes, relying on this Democratic Party would be relying on air. But this is not a functioning democracy. 1/

In a functioning democracy, political parties represent a cohesive set of interests and values, and the expertise that stands behind those interests and values lives within the party. 2/

Bernie is himself effectively a political party in the US, and yes, his long incumbency made that possible. San Francisco could elect no one but Nancy Pelosi because she too had a lot of expertise and capable staff. 3/

When power or capability attaches to seniority, voters can no longer vote their values and interests. They have to trade off the “market power” introduced by incumbency against their “representative’s” increasing deviations from constituent priorities. 4/

There’s no democratic check. You can vote yourself entirely out of power in order to perform your values, or you can vote for the incumbent. Almost always, you vote for the incumbent, who is now largely a free agent. /fin

I’m with you in the corruption concern, but securing reelection is in practice often an encouragement to corruption as is securing and exit gig, given the role of monied interests in our system. 1/

I’m not with you in the legislative expertise concern. Legislative expertise properly belongs in parties and their staff, not electeds. Relying on electeds for expertise creates a strong and pernicious incumbency bias. 2/

We end up torn between candidates who earnestly advocate for our values and interests but would lack effectiveness for lack of experience and incumbents who are less beholden to our values and interests but are more competent and effective. 3/

I oppose any role of seniority in Congressional promotion or influence for this reason. /fin

China’s made a bunch of pretty plain mistakes. Nevertheless, they’ve maintained overall a strong enough market system to provide some feedback to the center and its schemes, and it’s hard to dispute the overall relative performance that’s resulted thus far. 1/

But yeah, it depends on quality of decision making. The more decision making is centralized, the more kurtosis in the distribution. Things can turn out very well, or very poorly. /fin