It’s doing what it is designed to do

I listen to the NPR show Freakenomics, hosted by Stephen Dubner. when I go out on Sunday to pick up lunch from a restaurant. Yesterday the episode was titled America’s Hidden Duopoly. This episode originally aired in 2018. A duopoly is when two companies take up most of a particular market. An example is Coke and Pepsi. The rivalry between the two is beneficial to both. The rivalry advertises both and is fairly good (or good enough) to prevent smaller companies from getting very big (and when they do one of the behemoths will usually try to buy them out). There is another duopoly that we don’t usually think of as one because we don’t see them as part of an industry or market. This duopoly is Democrats and Republicans in their control of American government. As I was listening to this (and kept listening once I got home) I remember a comment I said to my niece last summer: I am against everything the Republican Party stands for. Their ideals and goals are totally opposite of mine. They are my enemy. But that doesn’t mean I consider Democrats to be my friends. I have issues with them too. The show had a series of clips of various politicians saying Washington is broken. But what if that is a line and Washington is working as intended? Katherine Gehl had been the CEO of Gehl Foods in Wisconsin. To get advice on how to improve her company she turned to Michael Porter, a professor at Harvard Business School, working with strategy and competitiveness. In 2007 Gehl joined Obama’s national finance committee. Then she joined the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which gave her an idea of life in Washington. She didn’t like what she saw. Gehl said:

It became really clear to me that this fight was not about solving problems for the American people — this fight was about one party beating the other party, and that the parties were more committed to that than to actually solving problems or creating opportunities. Eventually, I understood that it didn’t matter who we elected. It didn’t matter the quality of the candidates. And so, once it became clear to me that it was a systems problem, I switched from investing my time in searching for the next great candidate and turned an eye to the fundamental root cause structures in the political system that pretty much guarantee that as voters we are perpetually dissatisfied.

She turned to non-partisan efforts, only to find people wouldn't donate to non-partisan causes. They were too used to the two-party lens. Gehl and Porter began to realize the business issues they talked about also applied to our political situation. Politics was an industry. They wrote up their ideas for the Harvard B School. The key findings had this sentence in bright red: “The political system isn’t broken. It’s doing what it is designed to do.” The two parties divided up the industry, including media, consultants, and lobbyists. Also policies, think tanks, voter data, and talent. When an industry starts doing things for itself instead of its customers (the citizens) an upstart can usually come in, based on the strength of its customer support. But the two parties have colluded over time to create rules and practices that keep out the competition. A new party can’t get a campaign manager or voter analytics, Can’t get the attention of the media. A new party faces partisan primaries, gerrymandered districts, and winner-take-all elections. One result is they don’t compete for voters. They don’t work to attract the middle. If those in the middle are unhappy, they have no alternative. The election is based on each party portraying themselves as much less hated than the other. The two parties maximize the benefit to their institutions but don’t actually serve the public interest. Solutions… Start with a non-partisan primary. All candidates, no matter the party, are voted on by all the people. The top four candidates go on to the general. Second, in the general, go to ranked-choice voting. The voters rank the four candidates first, second, etc. The first choices are counted. If no candidate gets 50% the bottom candidate is removed and of those who listed him first, take their second choice and add to the others. Repeat until one gets 50%. That eliminates “wasting” votes on third-party candidates. Third, get rid of gerrymandering. Fourth, in Congress and state legislatures get rid of the enormous power the controlling party can wield. Fifth, restructure money in politics to boost the power of small donors, such as the government matching small donations. Of course, the duopoly will fight these reforms with all they have. I see a bit better why Democrats aren’t always my friends. Yes, I see much of this no longer applies as Republicans work to make America into a one party state.