Responsible spending policy plus secure governance, minimal corruption, solid law and contract enforcement, makes a good product. The democratic aspect of government has not made very good products, i.e. numerous mass-slaughterings in the 20th Century at the hands of democratically elected people. Democracy + good governance has some charm to it, but it’s not an ideal mix. These things have gone south before.

And for the cases where I actually do have an opinion, I can’t vote for the person I actually want to because of geographical boundaries. People should be able to vote for anyone running for the House of Representatives (or the Senate) regardless of what district they live in. If 10% of the population voted for one guy in the Senate, he would have 10% of the votes (ie, 10 votes). If 2% of the population voted for one guy in the Senate, he would have 2 votes. This would let people vote for the person they really agree with, on all the issues, instead of the poor substitute that happens to be running in their district. It would also provide MUCH better representation to minorities. And I don’t just mean racial minorities, but minorities of all kinds, including Libertarians, etc.

I see. So the bottom line is that you think these small autocratic states are more desirable than constitutional democracies, at least in terms of implementing responsible budgetary policies.

I think we’re just misunderstanding each other. I argue they do run deficits, but that they’re not the only types that do.

“OK. Please name a type of government that doesn’t have a proclivity to run deficits? Miliary dictatorships? As just one case, Hitler ran huge deficits before the war and even larger ones during it.”

Some small, modern autocratic states are good examples. Singapore, Hong Kong, the best 2 economies in the world are autocratic. Various free economic zones are popping up now and it’ll be interesting to see how those work out too (hopefully not like Dubai, an example of bad business planning). Nowadays information access makes people far more able to live under autocratic rule and still get the information they need and vie for some basic rights. Autocracies aren’t fool-proof though. Leaders can run deficits no matter what their government type is, like Dubai. But leaders (and constituent shareholders) with a direct stake in a territory tend to balance their books better. If given the choice, voters will vote in a nice-looking leader who will run the well dry.

You: “Not sure where you read “only rep democracies run deficits” in my replies…”

I interpreted the following exchange from previous blogs to mean you were “arguing against constitutional democracy” because of their spendthrift habits.

Me: “I’m not sure what you mean by this; are you arguing against a constitutional democracy?”

You: “Yes I am, and I don’t see how randomly selecting 12 delegates per jurisdiction to represent everyone will help solve the problems that we have with voting.”
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“…but they do, as do other types of business-governments, like Islamic governments that are largely monarchistic (corporate) but emphasize religious restrictions over property rights.”

OK. Please name a type of government that doesn’t have a proclivity to run deficits? Miliary dictatorships? As just one case, Hitler ran huge deficits before the war and even larger ones during it.

I can’t think of any, in which case, this isn’t a good basis for opposing constitutional democracies.
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“Places with a lot of business activity tend to be better for people in general.”

No disagreement on that one.