I really like the way you framed this argument and it aligns with other things I’ve read (e.g. Fareed Zakaria’s The Future of Freedom) that point out how ironically increased democratization in the US and elsewhere has led to decreased efficacy of American government. But it does strike me that what you have coined “The Lizardman Constant” is pretty similar to the existing idea of the Tragedy of the Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons).
Special interest groups can exert sufficient effort to steer policies in their favor that don’t hurt any other group sufficiently to merit retaliation, but that in aggregate bog down our politics. Do you think this is basically the same idea?? Or is there something fundamentally different?
I really like the way you framed this argument and it aligns with other things I’ve read (e.g. Fareed Zakaria’s The Future of Freedom) that point out how ironically increased democratization in the US and elsewhere has led to decreased efficacy of American government. But it does strike me that what you have coined “The Lizardman Constant” is pretty similar to the existing idea of the Tragedy of the Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons).
Special interest groups can exert sufficient effort to steer policies in their favor that don’t hurt any other group sufficiently to merit retaliation, but that in aggregate bog down our politics. Do you think this is basically the same idea?? Or is there something fundamentally different?