Quote:
Originally Posted by jason taylor
One thing that is a possible foundation for a new system is that in several Western nations there is to much power devolved to unelected or even uncrowned executive branch Mandarins. If Charles I pushes to hard on his new naval budget you can always cut his head off but if the navy is pressuring to hard for money for an impressive but obsolete platform you have to dig out a lot of red tape. Not to mention they can always keep decisions within the frame of a tight oligarchy by appealing to expertise("who the heck are you to say the bomber won't really always get through, you're just a voter").
On the other hand the obvious solution of giving legislators executive commands as a second hat(for instance both Honor Harrington and Miles Vorkosigan were parliamentarians as well as an admiral and an internal investigator respectively and in real life Fitzroy Maclean was a parliamentarian, an army officer, and a local aristocrat at the same time) makes for a decline in professionalism. Furthermore as much abuse comes from legislators using their bias for a given allotment of funds(like a naval base)distract from their duty to the common interest.
This is not an idea in itself so much as a tangle of problems. What it is however is a challenge for an interesting way to solve it.
Having Parliamentarians wear second hats actually has worked in the past. But it required them to be cultivated in a culture which enabled that, perhaps at the cost of being over hierarchial. After all haberdashers from Missouri can make pretty good Presidents or at least better then most, but that does not mean they are good at specialized jobs. On the other hand no haberdasher is going to out do the career of Aral Vorkosigan's son on Barrayar even if he is physically fit. The advantage gained of getting a class bred to rule is considerable but so is the cost.
What I am looking for is basically a way to
A) Curb the Executive mandarins
while B) Maintaining technical proficiency
and C) avoid creating a brittle or overweighted aristocracy that will destroy itself after making everyone else's life miserable. An aristocracy of some kind is permissible but it should have something of a slack-one that does permit an occasional haberdasher to be chief executive for instance.
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How is this different from the number of British MPs who were either Royal Navy or British Army officers at the same time?