Paul: I was praising the theory of the US political system rather than the practice. At present far too much power lies in the hands of committee chairs, something I rather skipped over in the post. (See the brilliant Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi on this here.)

But I think there’s a strong argument that public transport and healthcare should be left in the hands of the states – that way, if, say, Massachusetts were to have great success with an NHS style programme there’d be pressure on other states to copy it. The unhealthy influence of big business seems to be a problem the world over, and I’m not going to pretend I have a solution to that one.

“Furthermore, problems of accountability occur with federal systems as officials have more chains of command to pass the buck to” – this is no doubt true, and is something you see in Europe where the EU tends to get damned for unsuccessful policies while national governments take the credit for successful ones. Again, I don’t have a solution off the top of my head.

Blimpish: “it would be just as unfair to say “The right tends to distrust government because of fears of excessive bureaucracy and prefers to let business do as much as possible. The left insist on misreading the theory as “government good, business bad,” generally because most of them work or are tied into the public sector, and protest every time someone says “efficiency” or “choice”.”

I completely agree there is a lot of truth to both versions, and was simplifying in the name of rhetoric. But I do think that “the left distrusts business, the right distrusts government” does the job as a reasonable first approximation. My point was not that either are right or wrong, just that simplistic views from both left and right tend to miss the point of why free markets generally, but not always, work better.

Gotta say, though, I wasn’t expecting to be attacked for parodying the right on this one…

“The left tends to distrust business because of the profit motive and prefers to leave the important stuff to government. The right insist on misreading the theory as “business good, government bad”, generally because it allows them to accumulate enormous fortunes and protest every time someone says “tax” or “regulation”.”

Because it would be just as unfair to say:

“The right tends to distrust government because of fears of excessive bureaucracy and prefers to let business do as much as possible. The left insist on misreading the theory as “government good, business bad,” generally because most of them work or are tied into the public sector, and protest every time someone says “efficiency” or “choice”.”

There’s doubtless truth in both versions, but only some. ‘Nice/public-spirited’ and ‘nasty/self-interested’ in no way correlate with Left and Right.

(Statement made for the Committee for the Defence of Right-wing Nasties.)

Let us not go over the top regarding the US political system. Personally, I think the Westminster model is superior. Two main problems not mentioned with the US system are (1) log jam, and (2) excessive lobbying. A separation of powers plus federalism means powers are dispersed so much that coordinating and implementing national programmes are almost impossible. The failure of the US to provide free national health care and a national (public) transport system demonstrates point one, and the unhealthy influence big business exerts on the policy process obviously demonstrates two.

Furthermore, problems of accountability occur with federal systems as officials have more chains of command to pass the buck to. In the UK, clear remits for departments and ministers combined with centralised government give the electorate greater accountability over its political elites.

I’m bound to ask: Does that not apply to voters and consumers too? Perhaps part of the reason governments (and companies) stagnate is that the voters are just being a bit shit, lacking the wit to imagine an alternative, until things get really bad.