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points by anonymous908213 4 days ago | 0 comments

The idea that you must fire your most competent employees after ~8 years on the job, in a exceedingly difficult job that requires on-the-job training, is in fact one of the most inane and damaging things to democracy.

[–] mrtksn 4 days ago

They are most competent in getting elected, which often is not the same as being most competent in anything else.

Even with Germany it turned out that Angela Merkel did grave mistakes and Germans were able to find out about those only after she left office. Being continually in office gives you the ability to hide your trials. The longer you stay the easier it is for you to get elected.

That’s why it is very important to have a time limit in power.

[–] dachris 4 days ago

It's even more important that time limit gives those in power a planned off-ramp.

The extreme case which you want to avoid is "politicians" (dictators) desperately clinging to power, because they did things that would get them killed if they ever lost their power, which is a vicious cycle.

[–] npsomaratna 3 days ago

When I read about ancient (republican) Rome, I used to wonder how much their having an off-ramp from power contributed to their stability.

In many of the contemporary cultures (e.g., the post-Alexander greek kingdoms), being toppled from the heights of power would result in exile, imprisonment, or worse; in the republic, you could lose a battle as a general or step down from being consul and still lead a peaceful life afterwards.

One could argue that the change in this situation in the late republic directly resulted in it's downfall--Caesar crossed the Rubicon because he feared prosecution and imprisonment by his opponents once he lost his proconsular immunity.

[–] digitaltrees 3 days ago

That's a reasonable thought. But a counter perspective is that leaders may have had more integrity and fidelity to ethical behaviors making prosecution less necessary. If that were the case then it would be better to have continual investigation and prosecution possible so there is no shield of power or incentive to hold on to the shield. The check on power is the punishment. The threat of punishment encourages leaders that are unethical to self select avoiding office.

[–] prmoustache 4 days ago

TBH the idea that one person could have so much power is bad imho, it only attracts sociopaths.

I like the swiss model more where one party never gets full power, even if it means societal changes take more time to happen[1], it seems less risky to me as there is never one power grab whose decision can influence the next election by stuff like redistricting, puting clearly leaning judges to federal court, etc.

[1] famous example is the women right to vote in the general election happened in 1971 which is quite shameful

[–] throw0101a 4 days ago

> Even with Germany it turned out that Angela Merkel did grave mistakes and Germans were able to find out about those only after she left office. Being continually in office gives you the ability to hide your trials.

A "required absence" is a thing in a number of sensitive positions, especially financial/regulated industries.

[–] anonymous908213 4 days ago

> They are most competent in getting elected, which often is not the same as being most competent in anything else.

If it was not clear, I am not stating that anyone who is in office is automatically the most competent. However, the entire point of a democracy is that you have the option to fire bad candidates. And yet, with term limits, when you do get a competent candidate in office, you do not have the option to keep them in office.

[–] wredcoll 4 days ago

The most commonly repeated pattern across literally all of human history is that power grows.

Being the chief executive in a system like brazil's results in a lot of power, for several perfectly good reasons, but it does mean you have to build in safe guards against that power growing.

Regular elections are good, but not sufficient, as a study of recent world history would demonstrate.

[–] anonymous908213 4 days ago

> Regular elections are good, but not sufficient, as a study of recent world history would demonstrate.

Term limits are not a solution either, as a study of recent world history would demonstrate. Clearly there is a need to check power, but perhaps the mechanisms that check power should not also ensure you will never have a truly excellent leader && increase instability from flipflopping policies && give more opportunities for people who will abuse power to take office and ignore the term limits because that's what people who abuse power do. A term limit is only effective against a mildly bad candidate who is not truly willing to abuse their power, because if they are willing to abuse their power they can just ignore it. In that way, you've created a system that caps upside but leaves downside uncapped in practice.

[–] flohofwoe 4 days ago

> you will never have a truly excellent leader

Democracies shouldn't have a "leader", they should have functional governments and strong oppositions. Focusing on a single person never ends well.

[–] solyin 4 days ago

Never is too far. Singapore's done well with a benevolent leader, as has Python and Linux.

[–] flohofwoe 4 days ago

I wouldn't mix countries and software projects though. When the "benevolent leader" of a software project goes crazy there will be a bit of social media drama and that's it. When the same thing happens in a country, people are massacred (and in essence this is also the reason why countries shouldn't be governed like a company, a country can't simply shut down like a company when things go south).

[–] lrasinen 4 days ago

There's the view that republican Rome's military success was due to their public career path churning out OK military commanders at a steady rate. Not necessarily great, just good enough with a solid understanding of the basics.

The fall of that system then came about when politically ambitious characters started developing more personal and long-term relations with their troops.

I'd say that's an argument for term limits: you want them to get good but not set roots permanently.

[–] wredcoll 3 days ago

I ran into that idea the other day and I thought it was pretty interesting, although I'd phrase it slightly differently:

"Rome's tradition of having to serve in 'lower offices' before the higher ones meant that when aristocrats inevitably ended up in charge of entire armies they had some level of practical experience and learnings to draw on while commanding".

But yes, much is made of Rome's redundancy in terms of military strength and there's a lot of states during that period that had A King who did everything and then died in a battle and then everything collapsed.

[–] ethbr1 4 days ago

There's a reason the US military cycles officers to different duty postings every 2-4 years...

What it loses in efficiency, it gains in avoiding centralization, cult of personality, and encouraging standardization.

[–] TheCoelacanth 3 days ago

Efficiency is often directly opposed to resiliency. Governments and militaries should prioritize resiliency over efficiency.

[–] flohofwoe 4 days ago

Tbh, a single politician should never have enough power to move the needle significantly to either side. And even in companies, the "bus factor" is a thing (eg everybody must be replaceable).

[–] neves 2 days ago

There are time limits in Brazil. Lula was reelect once, spent 12 years out of office, and came back. Twice.

[–] skrtskrt 3 days ago

In America the next administration hides them for you because they will never set the precedent of punishing a president for exceeding their power.

Obama could have had Bush against the wall at the Hague for his war crimes... and then Trump could have had Obama against the wall at the Hague for his war crimes... and then Biden could have had Trump... and on and one we go.

[–] SoftTalker 4 days ago

Disagree. Presidency, like other elected positions, should not be a career. I want people who can serve with high dedication and then go back to private life. I'd like to see term limits on representatives and senators as well, and also an upper age limit.

[–] anonymous908213 4 days ago

> Presidency, like other elected positions, should not be a career.

As stated, this is merely a truism, and you have not justified this belief. Would you care to? It seems very irrational to me. High office is one of the most difficult and most impactful jobs in the world. It's easy to do a terrible job and screw everyone over while enriching yourself, of course, but extremely challenging to do a good job. You are responsible for the fate of tens or hundreds of millions of people, and must exercise incredible judgment on the breadth of every macro problem society faces while simultaneously maneuvering both internal support and foreign relations. Why would we not want to make this most important of all jobs a job where people can actually grow into the role and demonstrate expertise in it? You are strictly only eliminating the electorate's options. There is already a corrective mechanism for voters to evict someone doing a bad job [whether they choose to exercise it is another matter, but that's literally democracy in action], but there should be no mechanism to sustain a job well done?

[–] stickfigure 4 days ago

The skill to win elections and the skill to govern are not the same. And humans have biases against change. Term limits guarantee the downside is limited and they are healthy for a real democracy.

Also... too long in power makes it easier to dismantle the democratic process.

The entire American system of checks and balances is not designed to get optimal leadership, it is designed to limit damage from bad leadership.

[–] senderista 4 days ago

> The entire American system of checks and balances is not designed to get optimal leadership, it is designed to limit damage from bad leadership.

Well how's that working out? There's a reason the rest of the developed democratic world hasn't adopted a strong executive.

[–] ckdarby 4 days ago

American system maintained being a super power for 80 years, great stability and giant prosperity.

Worked out very well for the American system till recently.

[–] senderista 4 days ago

I think that's just because both parties managed to keep demagogues from being nominated until 2016.

[–] stickfigure 3 days ago

I agree with you, the system is far from perfect. But right now we're talking about the benefits of term limits and it is greatly comforting that no matter what, in two more years Trump will be gone.

[–] ngcazz 4 days ago

I mean, US foreign policy been supercharged with Trump, and from that perspective his leadership's been plenty adequate. Declaring war on Iran in particular has long been a neoliberal aspiration that no one had the political courage to implement - enter Trump, the nominal adversary on whom they could outsource their ambitions, and whose blunders could cynically be disavowed.

[–] senderista 3 days ago

The neocons at The Bulwark are secretly rejoicing about the war with Iran.

[–] lopis 4 days ago

> And humans have biases against change

Funnily enough, a lot of people who voted for Flávio only did it because they wanted a change from Lula.

[–] anonymous908213 4 days ago

> The skill to win elections and the skill to govern are not the same.

Then elect someone else next time. This, however, is a criticism of democracy more than it is a justification for term limits.

> The entire American system of checks and balances is not designed to get optimal leadership, it is designed to limit damage from bad leadership.

How's that working out for you? You got Trump and Biden as a direct result of term limits. The way I see it, your system has selected for the maximally damaging bad leadership possible.

[–] jcranmer 4 days ago

> You got Trump and Biden as a direct result of term limits.

The US only enacted term limits in 1951. Before that time, only two presidents had attempted to seek third terms (another two attempted but failed to secure even a nomination by a political party), and only one was successful.

And, quite frankly, the only president since the 22nd amendment who I could see wanting to run for a third term is Trump, who does seem to be campaigning for one anyways despite being constitutionally barred from it.

[–] solyin 4 days ago

The writing is that no one can serve as president for longer than ten years, not that someone couldn't run a third term. A traditional reading means that you wouldn't seek a third term, but tradition'a been thrown out the window.

[–] jcranmer 4 days ago

In the interests of pedantry, that's not what the writing says. The operative text is quoted here:

> No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

The 'obvious loophole' is that the text doesn't constrain the number of terms anyone can serve, but instead constrains the number of times someone can be elected as president, so if you run as vice president for someone who agrees to immediately resign to let you be president, you technically don't run afoul of the rule.

(The more likely loophole, following from Trump v Colorado, is that nobody is actually allowed to declare somebody ineligible for president, so the constitution's strictures are meaningless in practice. It truly is a disgusting SCOTUS decision.)

[–] flamedoge 4 days ago

hardly the worst leaderships. Would you rather have Mao/Stalin/Putin?

[–] 9935c101ab17a66 1 day ago

You shouldn’t complain about truisms (is the quoted text even a truism? It doesn’t seem obviously true) that lack proper justification beyond belief when your initial premise was “an elected leader is the most competent person for the job”.

Beyond the obvious differences between campaigning and actually leading effectively, there is the very obvious looming spectre of dictatorship. So many dictatorships in the our modern history have started off with promising leaders affecting real change. That is, until they decide they like power a bit too much and start dismantling the democratic machinery that they used to take power in the first place.

You also assert that term limits are bad because it doesn’t allow time for people to grow into the role and demonstrate expertise in it. To that I say: there are other ways to lead and grow and develop expertise than the most powerful political office in any country.

I mean, we have an obvious and irrefutable real life example of what can happen without term limits. Just look at the US senate, the house and the Supreme Court. All of the political bodies are or have been littered without of touch career politicians who spend all their time ensuring no one else can challenge them, enriching themselves and their top supporters.

[–] jltsiren 4 days ago

The entire republican tradition (with a small r) rests on the assumption that leadership is a common skill. The society is supposed to give ambitious young people opportunities to demonstrate their skills, and then select the most capable ones and give them increasingly challenging roles. At any given time, there should be an order of magnitude more potential leaders (with the necessary skills and experience) than what the society actually needs. And the leaders should be replaced often enough, to avoid giving them the idea that they are somehow special.

[–] nkmnz 4 days ago

Democracy is not about figuring out who’s most competent at the job, it’s about being able to get rid of everybody in power at some point without using weapons or waiting for them to die of natural causes. A term limit is a very good idea and I’d even implement it for legislators and other government officials.

[–] abenga 4 days ago

Part of being competent is building legislative and other public service systems that run without you being at the helm, and bringing up younger leaders behind you who keep things going upward. Memento mori, and all that.

[–] psd1 4 days ago

Exactly this; the job of civil service is to retain institutional competence, and to offer cabinets digests and levers to pull that they can operate at high level.

Day one:

- your predecessor had this and this initiative, see pages 4 to 7 - i don't like that, what alternatives exist - we worked this up at the time, here are the projections which were updated six months ago - good, do that instead - we'll need to redo the numbers - then do so, and brief me again next week

[–] CRConrad 4 days ago

Are you talking about politicians, or actual employees?

If the latter: Yes, that is actually stupid, but the stupidity lies not in the term limits for politicians, but in the idea that public servants are employed on the grounds of party affiliation.[1]

But replacing large swathes of competent higher officials every time you change government... The only country I know of for sure that does that is the USA. Are you saying that's the way it works in Brazil, too?

___

[1]: Sure, to some extent it exists everywhere, but that's usually only a few sincure posts for old politicians removed from any actual influence by being "promoted diagonally left-upwards". (See, for example, the post of "landshövding" in Sweden.)

[–] unethical_ban 3 days ago

That's why you have an administrative state filled with career people whose knowledge is in their field and loyalty to country, not party.

History and present have many examples of the flawed human tendency to latch onto larger-than-life figures.

A benevolent, wise dictator would be the most effective form of government, but we are humans, not angels.

[–] uselesswords 3 days ago

The problem is what happens if an incompetent person stays on forever. There are many examples in history of great countries and empires that were lead by one person only for it all to come down when one idiot became the person in charge. An important idea behind term limits and democracy is sacrificing the ability to have an amazing leader for life so that an incompetent leader doesn't serve for life.

Its a fundamental safeguard and a hedge against tyranny. Its why, in general, countries that are lead by one person for life can be very impressive in the short term but inevitably fall apart once the wrong person eventually takes charge. Because the odds are that eventually the wrong person will take charge.

[–] morgoo 4 days ago

Would you say that the gerontocracy currently ruling in congress is preferable?

[–] ookblah 4 days ago

i feel like democracy isn't about the most competent but about the "least bad" option you could have. an effective dictator (lol) can cut thru the red tape but what people are worried about are the terrible ones. at least with a democracy you can rotate them out.

[–] brunomiranda 3 days ago

Most of the times they are hardly competent.

[–] notenchange 4 days ago

There is nothing competent about Lula. It’s a populist “corrupticracy”.

I really can’t understand how Brazilians (that actually have a multi party system) keep having to choose between two awful candidates.

[–] Gud 4 days ago

Switzerland rotates their President every year.

[–] tgv 4 days ago

First among equals, the president of the Confederation has no powers over and above the other six councillors and continues to head the assigned department. Traditionally the duty rotates among the members in order of seniority; the vice president of the Federal Council assumes the presidency the year after the officeholder's tenure. The president of the Confederation is not the head of state because the entire Federal Council is the collective head of state.

Per wikipedia.

[–] izacus 4 days ago

Exactly, this prevents personality cults and power hoarding.

[–] tgv 4 days ago

No, it means that the role of the Swiss president cannot be compared to the cases discussed. It requires a different organization of the state, not just a term or age limit.

Wrt to the latter: the Swiss system prefers the elder candidate.

[–] izacus 3 days ago

You're mixing up cause and effect - the short term limits cause a different, less people culty, governance.

[–] jddj 4 days ago

Power corrupts.

[–] RobotToaster 4 days ago

Power doesn't corrupt, it reveals.

[–] roughly 4 days ago

Except when those employees also have command of armies, at which point history has shown that swapping them out before they get too comfortable is key for keeping a republic a republic.

[–] anonymous908213 4 days ago

> history has shown

It doesn't really show that, though. Putin was not stopped by term limits. Hitler seized power within a year of being elected. Lukashenko established his rigged state within two years. Fujimori launched a self-coup within two years. I'm actually not aware of evidence that term limits have ever meaningfully did anything to impede a would-be wrongdoer.

[–] psd1 4 days ago

Survivorship bias explains that. The list of dictators-for-life does not include those who don't become dictators for life.

I'd suggest that term limits are party of a package that rests on strong public faith in democratic institutions. E.g. Macron is about able to hang on, but i doubt he could stay past an electoral defeat because he presides over a nation that won't tolerate it.

[–] ponector 4 days ago

Is Trump and his administration most competent employees?

I would rather limit not amount of terms, but the age. Not eligible for any kind of elections if you are 60+, both as candidate and as voter.

[–] NetMageSCW 3 days ago

It shouldn’t be a fixed age, that’s the mistake too many laws make already is not accounting for change. What happens when i. the future the average lifespan is 200 years? It should be something like no older than 75% of the average lifespan.

[–] ponector 3 days ago

Law could be flexible, updated could be done to accommodate changes in the future.

My point is to not let people who are in the final stage of their life to decide how future generation should live.

[–] culi 3 days ago

Brazil also has this. A president can't run 3 times in a row. But if there's a break in between then they can run again. Lula won't be able to run in 2030

[–] gorgoiler 4 days ago

It’s a nice argument but there’s another axis: fatigue. Leading takes its toll. To be charitable it’s not plausible that you can run a country, with all the stress that entails, and out compete everyone not at the apex of the front line.

I check my brake pads every year. Eventually the incumbent pads lose out to some whipper-snapper from the new pads box. I might vote red again or I might switch to blue. It depends how muddy it is. Either way, it’s both a new/old choice as well as a red/blue choice.

Time-in-office is also a major contributor to corruption. Lukashenko has been winning the same election for 30+ years!