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LAWS BENEFITING SOME NOT 'OTHERS'
CAUSE 'OTHERS' TO BECOME
"UNHAPPIER THAN OTHERWISE".
THIS IS CALLED UNHAPPIERNESS.
LAWS BENEFITING SOME NOT 'OTHERS'
CAUSE 'OTHERS' TO BECOME
"UNHAPPIER THAN OTHERWISE".
THIS IS CALLED UNHAPPIERNESS.
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, brewer or the baker that we expect our dinners,
but from their regard to their own interest."
~ Adam Smith
When McDonalds and Coca-Cola supply us with food and drinks that we enjoy and willingly pay for, they are doing so not from their benevolence, but from regard to their own self-interest.
They want to sell their products for more than their cost. Then they can make a profit and distribute dividends to their shareholders.
In the process, we enjoy our McD and Coke without giving a thought to the complexity involved in converting our planet's resources into food and drink at prices that we can afford. This is simply the free market at work.
There are numerous would-be McDs and would-be Coca-Colas, who keep the originals on their toes. Daily competition is what makes the free market beneficial for us all.
The problem with today's representative democracy is that there is no such daily competition.
Our representative-lawmakers command the legislative process during the whole of their term in office. During which term, they exploit the rule of law - unhappilaw - to forcibly take from Some and give to Others.
In a nutshell, democracy is systemically flawed.
In the political process, we all form ourselves into SIGs - Special Interest Groups - whose main purpose is to lobby lawmakers to pass laws that benefit our particular SIG at the expense of Others.
We all want to secure for our own SIGs, as large a chunk of government money as possible - regardless of the needs of others. In other words, we are driven not only by self-interest but also by Greed. We all want more than our "fair share".
Thus, there are thousands of "sig" bills passed that benefit Some Not All.
The "happies" who benefit, become "happier-than- otherwise" - a state that is called "happi"erness.
And the "unhappies" who don't benefit, become "unhappier-than-otherwise" - a state that is called "unhappierness".
When such bills are passed, the "happies" are initially ecstatic that they got the bill they wanted.
They are happy that they've extracted from the government money pot, an unequal share of taxpayers' money for their own particular SIGs.
After the law has existed for a while, they no longer feel as ecstatic as they did when it was first passed. They now consider it a right, and accept its benefits without giving a thought for what else might have been done with the money involved.
Meanwhile, they have become a part of the "greatest number" in Jeremy Bentham's notion that the greatest good is the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Presumably, the more SIG laws that are enacted, the more SIGS are happy and the greater the happiness of society at large.
Not so.
Every SIG law that is enacted, results in "Marginalized MOOs" - unhappies who almost qualified for the benefits of the new law but not quite.
Unlike the happies who accept their good fortune and think little more about it, the unhappies keep dwelling on their misfortune, on their missed opportunity, on the benefits that others are getting, but not them.
Thus, SIG laws not only generate Some who are temporarily happier-than-otherwise, they also generate ever more who are permanently unhappier-than-otherwise; and possibly becoming ever more unhappier-than-otherwise by the day.
This leads to a divided society that is ever more filled with unhappies who didn't get the benefits they thought they should have.
Or, perhaps even more divisively, who thought, and think, that Some got benefits that they shouldn't have got. Read the rich getting richer as a result of favorable legislation. .
In other words, the more SIG laws there are, the greater the chance of a society that suffers from unhappierness; a society that is unhappier-than- otherwise.
As long as there is simple majority voting to enact SIG laws, society will continue its path down the unhappierness slope...
What is the solution?
"See "happi"OCRACY - democracy with a purpose"
