Mr Khan said:
Let's try to see what the other side would be, though. If we had unprofessional politicians, that is, citizen legislators who are primarily engaged in another field of work, this would lead to: B: The "special interests" problem would get exponentially worse. If somebody takes time out from a career in, say, Pork, to go do a term as an MP or a Congressman or what have you, what do you think they're going to vote for, or care about? This isn't to say that this isn't also a problem already, but a problem that would ramp up if the politicians weren't making a living off the state. If anything, we need politicians who have the right beliefs but are otherwise completely isolated from the outside world and are utterly wards of the state. Platonic Philosopher-Kings of a sort, but this is yet more unrealistic. |
A: Not really, if we have public funding for elections. Parties would still exist, they just wouldn't be made up of opportunists.
B: You would get an influx of MPs from all walks of life. Mr Pig-Seller may initially start voting for pork subsidies, but presumably that's not his only interest, and the other 599 MPs/700 odd congressmen are not going to share his enthusiasm for pork.
The "ideal solution" if you can call it that is a benevolent dictatorship where one man has all of the power, but that causes far more problems than it will ever solve.