It strikes me that independence is a long term enough decision that we can justify thinking in SF timescales, or at least considering the last 100 years rather than the last 30. If I think of politicians as people whose decisions matter, I want a diverse selection from a large pool (N.Ireland is an example of a pool that is far too small - if you think professional politicians are bad, try people whose only tertiary education is bible college). If I worry that the next 100 years might not be free of wars, I want to be part of a large and unified country. I believe that a significant limitation of democracy is the number of different issues and personalities that the electorate are prepared to keep track of. I think this scarce resource is best used by allowing people to elect representatives who can affect the big issues directly and this means large states, not small states within a loose confederation like the EU.
Challenge - is there SF where a country the size of an independent Scotland flourishes amongst a dozen countries of at least its size? Imitations of Imperial Rome or present day USA appear more common.
]]>The end result will be something between current unemployment and training and the government acting as employer of last resort. People will get a salary largely independent of talent and skills but depending on the degree to which they comply with government restrictions on their behaviour. One way to present it would be as the formation of a reserve of government workers. The government could then penalize bad behaviour under, at most, civil procedures by treating it as behaviour by an employee bringing their employer into disrepute. They could also provide incentives for health and education - or any other behaviour they wish to support - on the grounds that it made the reserve employee more useful in any potential employment. Traditional education is expensive, of course, but computer marked drills could be very cheap if actual educational return wasn't of the first importance - and need not require staff with sufficient real managerial or educational ability, who could be used in remaining genuinely productive occupations.
Such an organization might give the governing party considerable political influence - this might at least be less bad than the alternative of low wage security guards functioning as corporate private armies.
]]>In the N.Ireland I grew up in many of the great houses of the aristocracy were run by the National Trust as tourist attractions. Prime Minister Jim Callaghan on the mainland appeared to be presiding over an inevitable decline into syndicalist dsytopia while the troubles - then at their height - were opening an even quicker route to chaos. My Father's stories and politics looked out of date - though if they fossilized in 1945 mine may have fossilized in 1975 - different, but not necessarily better.
]]>2) Economics has more scope for biased judgement of merit than physics, and the heir to the throne is a bigger fish than a French aristocrat. Ask J.K. Rowling about how to get an unbiased judgement of your latest work.
3) My Father, born 1922 in rural N. Ireland, remembers with some bitterness aristocrats and landowners who expected deference and more purely as the right of their birth. Such people would also be giving orders to their underlings without any experience of doing the work they were ordering. In these circumstances, getting a reputation as a buffoon is coming off lightly.
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