<story><title>How Mickey Mouse Evades the Public Domain</title><url>http://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-public-domain/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xerophyte12932</author><text>This is a good illustration for why I feel democracy is fundamentally broken.&lt;p&gt;Democracy requires a large number of people to agree on on party&amp;#x2F;person and to reach these people and to convince them to vote for your candidate, you have to spend tons of money. Either:&lt;p&gt;A) You use your own money. Which means you fall under &amp;quot;the financial elite&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;B) You take money from financial elites, which means you will owe them and pay back in some form. Why else would they give you their precious money?&lt;p&gt;Thus the power remains restricted to the the financial elite. The elected candidate represents the elites more than the common person because while the common person just gave the candidate a singular vote, the investor gave the candidate much needed money that helped gather all those votes</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjc50</author><text>&lt;i&gt;you have to spend tons of money&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This was what campaign finance reform was supposed to be about. It can be done differently: in the UK, the parties are not allowed to buy TV advertising! Instead there are a few fixed, free slots for the parties.&lt;p&gt;The Scottish Independence referendum had a spend limit of a few million £ for each side. Much less than a lot of California ballot propositions: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;time.com&amp;#x2F;3532419&amp;#x2F;ballot-measures-corporations&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;time.com&amp;#x2F;3532419&amp;#x2F;ballot-measures-corporations&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>How Mickey Mouse Evades the Public Domain</title><url>http://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-public-domain/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xerophyte12932</author><text>This is a good illustration for why I feel democracy is fundamentally broken.&lt;p&gt;Democracy requires a large number of people to agree on on party&amp;#x2F;person and to reach these people and to convince them to vote for your candidate, you have to spend tons of money. Either:&lt;p&gt;A) You use your own money. Which means you fall under &amp;quot;the financial elite&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;B) You take money from financial elites, which means you will owe them and pay back in some form. Why else would they give you their precious money?&lt;p&gt;Thus the power remains restricted to the the financial elite. The elected candidate represents the elites more than the common person because while the common person just gave the candidate a singular vote, the investor gave the candidate much needed money that helped gather all those votes</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>afsina</author><text>You may find the book &amp;quot;Democracy, the God that failed&amp;quot; from Herman Hoppe interesting (or you may find him too weird). Although cronyism is one of the main culprit, he gives other reasons for the inferiority of the Democracy. Bare in mind that he is an anti-statist and anarcho-capitalist. His proposed practical solution is de-centralization of governments to as small as possible pieces.&lt;p&gt;He has a related shorter variation here:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mises.org&amp;#x2F;library&amp;#x2F;aristocracy-monarchy-democracy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;mises.org&amp;#x2F;library&amp;#x2F;aristocracy-monarchy-democracy&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>