Is England world's biggest open-air museum?

[miki151]

I realize this is probably a dumb question, but don't a relatively homogenous group of people with money and power consistently maintain political control in all countries?

Probably yes, but it's also a matter of how criminal they can get before they are removed by the system.

[Rickton]

I do think krice is a cool girl/guy, and I'm not trying to pick on her/him.   However, what she/he is saying is just kind of disappointing and depressing to me.  I have always wanted to move to her/his area of the world one day, because I thought people there were the most open minded and caring of anyone on the planet.  And they still may be, I am just kind of surprised by krice's statements that seem to indicate, well, the opposite of that.

You can't use the views and opinions of a single person and assume the whole country/region is like that.

[Krice]

but don't a relatively homogenous group of people with money and power consistently maintain political control in all countries?

In some countries money is less important and so also other than rich people can become politicians. Money also has lesser role in political decisions as well. I guess people who live in US or England only think it's same everywhere else!

[Gr3yling]

Probably yes, but it's also a matter of how criminal they can get before they are removed by the system.

So, what how do they accomplish that in other countries?  Removing corrupt officials, I mean.  I'm also curious how they prevent people with money from buying power.

[miki151]

By the police and other institutions, I guess. I don't know s**t about politics, but once in a while someone gets arrested, so I guess that it works to some extent.

As for legitimately buying power, in Poland the election campaigns are publicly funded for example, which is silly and has other problems, but at least it prevents someone with a lot of money from buying them a seat. If it was up to me, I would forbid media campaigns altogether, because they are just bulls**ting people anyway.

The biggest corruption here is where public organizations do business with private companies, but there is no good solution to this, I think.

[Krice]

In Finland as in Poland almost everyone is poor so there isn't rich people in the first place who would want political power. And being a politician in Finland is not that great. It's mainly work in difficult situation and not much fun to have.

[miki151]

No, not in Poland, here there are plenty of rich businessmen who would buy some laws if they could. And there are damn lots of people with no qualifications who want to be politicians.

[AgingMinotaur]

So, what how do they accomplish that in other countries?  Removing corrupt officials, I mean.  I'm also curious how they prevent people with money from buying power.

By pretending it doesn't exist, as Krice so elegantly demonstrated in his latest comments I say this being born and raised in Norway, which is one of the world's "most democratic" countries by any standard. Of course, there are degrees of corruption and powermongering – corruption in the Nordic countries compares to countries like Nigeria or US as a kobold to a giant. Still, money is power, even in these innocent-ish mixed economies. Once every blue moon, whenever a journalist actually does an honest investigation of matters, there are examples of corruption being exposed. And even barring corruption as such, legislators and other officials cater to the rich by default, adamantly assuming that wealth, while perhaps not the key to happiness (and probably, in fact, the root of all evil), is in and of itself the end goal of all and any human endeavors

As always,
Minotauros

[TheCreator]

Wealth as the root of all evil? Are you a communist or something?

[AgingMinotaur]

Most def, brutha In all seriousness, though, I'm less "communist" and more "or something"¹. And putting the "root of all evil"-part into my post was (at least partially) in jest. I think money is a brilliant invention, but IMHO, capitalism has gotten way out of hand on our planet.

As always,
Minotauros

¹ Anarchopacifistic queer socialism ftw!

[TheCreator]

I think that rich people are much less than 1% of the population, so blaming them for causing all evil is, well, kind of weird. Isn't it that the 99% lets the 1% to do bad things?

[AgingMinotaur]

I of course agree with you to a certain extent (and I wasn't name-calling the rich as individuals; otoh, don't even get me started). But those with wealth and power do have a responsibility for how they/we shape society. It's not as if force isn't used to uphold the status quo. You think a kid who is ripped apart by a cluster bomb bears as much responsibility as the CEO raking in the profit made in manufacturing and distributing said bomb? Or that a thousand concentration camp inmates put together has as much decisive power as even a single individual reading this post?

Edit: Regarding the 1%, "rich" is of course a pretty vague term. There's some statistics to be found on a certain wiki, of course. For instance:

A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. The bottom half of the world adult population owned 1% of global wealth. Moreover, another study found that the richest 2% own more than half of global household assets.

With this in mind, I think it'd be reasonable to call the richest 1% or even 10% wealthy, at least in relation to the rest. Then again, the divide between the hyper-rich and the rest of us has really grown in the last decade. That same page claims that today, the richest 0.011% is sitting on 49% of the loot.

As always,
Minotauros

[TheCreator]

But those with wealth and power do have a responsibility for how they/we shape society.

The problem is that they only feel responsible when they are being punished for not doing what the society demands from them. If a corrupted politician is being voted for over and over again, he does not feel the responsibility any more as his position seems to be independent of his actions.

[miki151]

Wealth as the root of all evil? Are you a communist or something?

Not wealth, greed. And it applies to communists too.

[Krice]

I've wondered.. if there is a better country than Finland then what it is and why?