No need for full time goverments

[OzT]

Countries generally are run by an efficient civil service.

So I reckon we just need a head of state to welcome other heads of states etc.

Still have local goverments and a representive where locals can pass ideas and grievances to. Then once a while say half a dozen wise men gather and decide on the local representive's things. Rule on them then go back home.

This way saves heaps on paying full time politicians and their buildings and support network, no more snouts in the gravey trough, just we get on with life as it goes. Cause to be fair, doesn't really make that much difference who's in power, it's just more money out, less freedom, or so it seems to me.

I think I have solved most country's constitutional conundrum

 

[TruXta]

I think you just described a technocracy.

 

[Pickman's model]

How does this deal with venal civil servants?

 

[kabbes]

Anybody who has ever had to actually deal with the civil service, whether regional or national, will be highly skeptical of the idea of that civil service having unchecked and untrammeled freedom to make decisions.

 

[OzT]

I though civil service just does the admin for a country and not make political decisions?

Had to google technocracy, but that seems a good system! have the people who knows about a subject make decisions on that subject.

But I like the idea of not having full time politicians.

 

[OzT]

Oh googled venal as well, and I say jail them!!

 

[likesfish]

problem with a Technocracy is the "experts" often turn out to be massively wrong say you spent your lifetime designing warships or telephone exchanges HMS Dreadnaught or the Silicon chip arrives all your expertise is now obsolete. Unless the people buy into your idea it's not going to work as the Soviets failed to discover forced collectivism was a disaster.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

we need more cats in government

 

[Teaboy]

I think you just described a technocracy.

Though with a few tweaks it could be full communism so lets not completely disregard the idea.

 

[SpineyNorman]

What happens when theres a political as opposed to technical question that needs resolving?

Depoliticisation - the idea that all that is left are technical questions to be resolved by experts - is already cover for a profoundly regressive political agenda. I'd rather not institutionalise it thanks.

 

[Pickman's model]

problem with a Technocracy is the "experts" often turn out to be massively wrong say you spent your lifetime designing warships or telephone exchanges HMS Dreadnaught or the Silicon chip arrives all your expertise is now obsolete. Unless the people buy into your idea it's not going to work as the Soviets failed to discover forced collectivism was a disaster.

Not to mention steam powered aircraft

 

[maomao]

The distribution of wealth can never be a technical decision it's always a political one.

 

[SpineyNorman]

The distribution of wealth can never be a technical decision it's always a political one.

The distribution of wealth is now dependent on the markets which are effectively a force of nature. That's not politics anymore, politics is about experts deciding public health policy or something now. Something like that anyway.

 

[JuanTwoThree]

we need more cats in government

Never mind the cat; There are cat-sized aliens guarding the doors of No.10. 'They' want us to think they are boot-scrapers or torch-holders but I, for one, am not that easily fooled.

 

[butchersapron]

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Who are these "half a dozen wise men"? Who gets to appoint them?

 

[Pickman's model]

Who are these "half a dozen wise men"? Who gets to appoint them?

no one appoints them, there are only half a dozen wise men.

 

[Steel Icarus]

How do we get rid of them?

 

[andysays]

no one appoints them, there are only half a dozen wise men.

Considering there were only three in Jesus' time, that's a 100% increase over 2000 years

 

[ska invita]

Im interested in the politics of the civil service ... all ive got to go on is Yes Minister. How much of a barrier to change is the civil service...how much unaccountable power does the service really have?
Pointers to reading on this would be welcome.

 

[kabbes]

Who are these "half a dozen wise men"? Who gets to appoint them?

We could have an election to decide who they should be

 

[Argonia]

If you're David Koresh you get to nominate who is the wise ones by having sex with lots of underage girls and having children with them.

BBC Four - Storyville, Waco: Madman or Messiah Part 1

 

[Wolveryeti]

Im interested in the politics of the civil service ... all ive got to go on is Yes Minister. How much of a barrier to change is the civil service...how much unaccountable power does the service really have?
Pointers to reading on this would be welcome.

This is good and not too dense:

Understanding the UK Civil Service

 

[ska invita]

This is good and not too dense:

Understanding the UK Civil Service

That's from the civil service itself no?....I was thinking of something more critical and independent

 

[Wolveryeti]

That's from the civil service itself no?....I was thinking of something more critical and independent

No - it's not official CC stuff- it's written by Martin Stanley, who is a former Senior Civil Servant and Chief Executive of two regulatory bodies.

 

[ska invita]

No - it's not official CC stuff- it's written by Martin Stanley, who is a former Senior Civil Servant and Chief Executive of two regulatory bodies.

That's the civil service!

 

[Wolveryeti]

That's the civil service!

not any more - he retired before he wrote the site iirc

 

[Pickman's model]

That's from the civil service itself no?....I was thinking of something more critical and independent

stuff from the civil service itself is likely to have a gov.uk url

 

[ska invita]

not any more - he retired before he wrote the site iirc

Yeah but he's an insider... The whole thing with the civil service is a presentation of quiet sense of duty and impartiality, that link echos that... His job is to present that....I want the dirt

 

[yield]

Yeah but he's an insider... The whole thing with the civil service is a presentation of quiet sense of duty and impartiality, that link echos that... His job is to present that....I want the dirt

'Subversive' civil servants secretly blacklisted under Thatcher
Tue 24 Jul 2018

Margaret Thatcher’s government drew up a secret blacklist of its own civil servants thought to be “subversives” in order to keep them under observation and block their promotion, papers released at the National Archives disclose.

Whitehall departments worked with MI5 to identify 1,420 civil servants to be closely watched and, where possible, kept away from computers and revenue collection roles.

The majority, 733 people, were identified as Trotskyists, and a further 607 as communists. Forty-five were said to be fascists, and 35 Welsh or Scottish nationalists, “black or Asian racial extremists” or anarchists.

Labour: government must say if blacklists are still in place
Wed 25 Jul 2018