Here's some fun math to ruin your day:

The chance your vote decides an election is one in sixty million.

The value if your candidate wins is ten thousand dollars (in policies you prefer).

The expected value of voting is zero point zero zero zero one seven dollars.

The cost of voting (time, gas, finding parking) is fifty dollars.

The net value is negative forty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents.

Voting is literally irrational. You have better odds of dying in a car crash on the way to vote than your vote mattering.

Yet people get really mad when you point this out.

Democracy.

The Founding Fathers were brilliant men. They anticipated tyranny, corruption, foreign invasion, and mob rule. They did not anticipate Florida.

Sixty-four percent of voters can't name the three branches of government. These same voters choose who runs those branches. Not you, of course. You're reading a book about international treaties. But statistically, the person sitting next to you thinks the judicial branch is a type of tree.

The Rational Ignorance Problem.

The cost of being informed is over one hundred hours researching candidates and issues.

The benefit of being informed is your one vote (worth zero point zero zero zero one seven dollars).

The rational decision is to stay ignorant and watch Netflix.

This isn't stupidity. It's the smartest decision your democracy makes possible.

Why spend one hundred hours researching healthcare policy when your vote won't change anything? You could spend those hours learning Italian, and at least then you'd be able to order gelato while your democracy collapses.

What Democracy Should Look Like vs Reality.

Princeton University analyzed one thousand seven hundred seventy-nine policy decisions over twenty years. The correlation between what ordinary voters want and what actually happens? ZERO. PERCENT.

When economic elites want something? Seventy-eight percent of the time.

You have the same political influence as your houseplant. Slightly less, actually. Your houseplant produces oxygen, which at least one congressman needs.

Your institutions tell the whole story in their names. You have a "Department of Defense" that mainly attacks people. A "Department of Health" that has not yet produced any observable health. And a "Department of Justice" that (you can see where this is going).

Whether zero percent or one hundred percent of voters support a bill, it has the same thirty percent chance of passing. Democracy is a slot machine where every pull gives the same result but you keep playing because the machine has an American flag on it.

The Mathematics of Political Failure.

Concentrated Benefits vs. Diffuse Costs.

Sugar subsidies cost Americans three point five billion dollars per year. That's ten dollars per person.

Will you spend weeks fighting to save ten dollars? No.
Will sugar companies spend millions to keep their three point five billion dollars? Yes.

Guess who wins?

This pattern repeats everywhere:

Military contractors receive nine hundred ninety-nine billion dollars in concentrated benefit (thirty-seven percent of two point seven two trillion dollars in global spending).

Taxpayers pay three thousand dollars each in diffuse costs (nine hundred ninety-nine billion dollars divided by three hundred thirty-three million Americans).

The winner is exactly who you would guess.

Pharma companies receive five hundred billion dollars in concentrated profits.

Patients suffer fifteen hundred dollars each in diffuse suffering.

The winner is not you.

Banks in 2008 received a seven hundred billion dollar bailout (concentrated).

You paid two thousand one hundred dollars in taxes (diffuse).

The winner is the ones with yachts.

How Money Buys Power.

Campaign contributions don't directly buy how politicians vote. Only 1 in 4 studies support that. The system is much more elegant than bribery. Bribery is what poor countries do. Rich countries have "campaign finance.".

But they do something far more effective: they buy which politicians exist in the first place.

Ninety-five percent of House races since 2004 were won by the highest spender.

The average winning House campaign is two point seven nine million dollars.

The average winning Senate campaign is twenty-six point five three million dollars.

Why bribe a politician when you can just manufacture one who already agrees with you? It's like complaining about the menu when you own the restaurant.

FOR THE ONES ALREADY IN OFFICE, contributions buy something more subtle than votes:

Access: Your call gets returned, theirs goes to voicemail.

Agenda control: Your issue gets a hearing, theirs gets buried.

Legislative language: The exact wording that creates loopholes.

Committee positions: four hundred fifty thousand dollars to party committees buys a seat where bills live or die.

You don't buy the vote. You buy the voter, the agenda, and the room where the vote happens.

The Lobbying R.O.I.: one thousand eight hundred and ten to one Returns.

The most profitable investment in America isn't stocks, real estate, or crypto. It's congressmen:

Disease advocacy groups spend one hundred million dollars on lobbying.

They get one point eight billion dollars in increased funding.

The R.O.I. is one thousand eight hundred and ten to one.

Meanwhile:

Breast cancer: Great lobbyists result in massive funding.

Heart disease: Kills more people, but worse lobbyists mean less funding.

Rare pediatric diseases: No lobbyists mean no funding.

Democracy doesn't allocate resources by who's dying. It allocates by who can afford the best lobbyist. If your disease can't hire a P.R. firm, it's not a real disease. It's just dying.

Why Nothing Ever Changes: A Mathematical Proof.

The number of Americans who want lower drug prices is three hundred thirty million.

The money they contribute to this cause is zero dollars.

The number of pharma executives who want high drug prices is one thousand.

The money they contribute is four point eight eight billion dollars.

One thousand is greater than three hundred thirty million (when you multiply by money).

That's not corruption. That's math.

Why Politicians Don't Care About You (With Math!).

A politician needs three things:

One. Votes (from idiots).

Two. Money (from corporations).

Three. Media coverage (from other corporations).

You provide one one-hundred-and-fifty-millionth of item number one.

Corporations provide one hundred percent of items number two and number three.

Who do you think they listen to?

The Iron Law of Oligarchy.

Every democratic organization eventually becomes an oligarchy. Political parties, unions, non-profits, your homeowners association, the P.T.A. Sharon from the bake sale committee is running it exactly like a Medici, and she knows it.

Democracy doesn't prevent oligarchy. It gives oligarchy a suit and a certificate that says "elected.".

Your Congressman: A Fundraiser Who Occasionally Legislates.

Average time congressmen spend on:

Fundraising: 4 hours a day.

Reading bills: zero hours a day.

Actual governing: Whatever's left.

They don't read what they vote on. The PATRIOT Act: 342 pages, voted on 45 minutes after release. That's seven point six pages per minute. Olympic speed-readers can't do that. The Affordable Care Act: 2,700 pages, "we have to pass it to see what's in it".

These people control nuclear weapons. Sleep tight.

Congressional Committees: The Menu.

Committees control which bills live or die. Both parties assign fundraising quotas for each seat: raise this much for the party, or lose your assignment. Don't hit your number? Your bills die, your amendments vanish, and your name goes on a literal "wall of shame".
It's like a restaurant where the waiters have to pay for their own sections.

Here's the menu. Want to be House Speaker? Raise twenty to thirty-one million dollars for your party. Want to chair a powerful committee like Ways and Means or Appropriations? That'll cost you about one point two to one point eight million dollars in party fundraising.
Even a basic freshman member owes a six-figure fundraising quota just to keep their seat at the table.

The House Speaker position requires raising thirty-one million dollars for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or D.C.C.C., and twenty million dollars for the National Republican Congressional Committee, or N.R.C.C., to control the entire agenda.

The Ways and Means Chair costs one point eight million dollars for Democrats and one point two million dollars for Republicans because all tax laws start here.

The Appropriations Chair costs one point eight million dollars for Democrats and one point two million dollars for Republicans to control a one point seven trillion dollar budget.

Energy and Commerce costs one point eight million dollars for Democrats and one point two million dollars for Republicans to oversee healthcare and Wall Street.

A Regular Committee seat costs between five hundred thousand and one million dollars for Democrats and eight hundred seventy-five thousand dollars for Republicans; it still beats irrelevance.

A basic freshman member owes a one hundred fifty thousand dollar plus entry fee to play.

This is why congressmen spend 4 hours a day fundraising. They're not campaigning. They're paying rent. The people writing your healthcare laws literally bought their positions from the industries those laws regulate. On your planet, this is called "the system working."

The 4-Year Attention Span: Democracy Has A.D.H.D.

A politician promises to "cure cancer".

They get elected.

They create a blue-ribbon commission.

The commission recommends more committees.

The next election happens.

A new politician promises to "cure cancer".

This repeats until the heat death of the universe.

Democracy has the institutional memory of a concussed goldfish.

Curing cancer takes 20 years. Elections happen every 4. No politician will start something they can't finish and take credit for. So nothing starts. This is why you have forty-seven consecutive "War on Cancer" declarations and zero cured cancers.

Why No One Can Fix This.

Every four years, someone promises to "fix Washington." Every four years, Washington fixes them.

The problem isn't the people. It's the incentives. You could elect 535 clones of Gandhi and within two years they'd be taking pharma money and approving bombing campaigns. The system digests idealists like a stomach digests food. It doesn't matter what you put in. You get the same output.

The Solution Democracy Can't Provide.

Democracy can't solve coordination problems. It is a coordination problem.

Example: Climate change.

The cost to fix it is one trillion dollars.

The benefit is the continued existence of Miami.

The problem is that the benefits are in fifty years, while the costs are today.

The democratic solution is to debate it until the ocean settles the argument.

Example: Medical research.

The cost is one hundred billion dollars.

The benefit is to cure all disease.

The problem is that the benefits are diffuse, but the costs are concentrated.

The democratic solution is to spend it on a slightly better missile.

Democracy optimizes for short-term concentrated benefits. Every single time. It's the most reliable machine your species has ever built.

Public Choice Theory: The Nobel Prize for Cynicism.

In nineteen eighty-six, James Buchanan won the Nobel Prize in Economics for formally proving what anyone who has ever been to the D.M.V. already knew:

People don't become angels when you give them a government I.D. badge.

This is Public Choice Theory: bureaucrats, politicians, and regulators are just as selfish as everyone else. The only difference is that when a corporation is greedy, you can stop buying their product. When a bureaucracy is greedy, they can arrest you for not buying their product.

What They Actually Maximize.

The N.I.H. should maximize cures, but actually maximizes grants awarded, resulting in no cures.

The F.D.A. should maximize lives saved, but actually maximizes avoiding lawsuits, resulting in deadly delays.

Congress should maximize voter welfare, but actually maximizes campaign donations, resulting in corporate welfare.

Pharma should maximize health outcomes, but actually maximizes recurring revenue, resulting in chronic disease being preferred.

Defense contractors should maximize national security, but actually maximize government contracts, resulting in endless wars.

Nobody in the system is incentivized to cure disease. Or end war.

The Libertarian Paradox.

Libertarians say that government fails because government is government.

Socialists say that government fails because it needs more government.

Public Choice Theory says that government fails because the people running it are people, and people are terrible.

The solution is to stop expecting people to be good. Design systems where being selfish accidentally produces good outcomes. Like capitalism, but for not dying.

Why This Is Actually Good News.

Democracy can't fix these problems. But something older and dumber can: greed.

Markets don't care if voters are stupid. Markets don't care if politicians are corrupt. Markets care about one thing: profit. Markets are sociopaths, but reliable sociopaths.

So make the right thing profitable.

That's what a one percent treaty does. It doesn't fix democracy. It routes around it, like the internet routes around damage.

Instead of convincing two hundred forty million voters to be smart (impossible), you convince one thousand investors to be greedy (they already are).

Why This Is Liberating.

You don't need virtuous leaders (there aren't any). You don't need politicians who care (they can't afford to). You don't need to convince anyone to be less selfish (four thousand two hundred ninety-seven years of data suggest this doesn't work).

You just need to point their selfishness at the right target.

Solution.

Democracy fails because:

Voters are rationally ignorant.

Politicians follow incentives.

Special interests concentrate benefits.

Costs are diffused to everyone.

A one percent treaty solution:

Don't need informed voters (investors do the math).

Create better incentives (make health profitable).

Concentrate benefits for reform (VICTORY Incentive Alignment Bonds).

Diffuse costs to military budget (they won't notice one percent).

You're using democracy's bugs as features.

Your Choice.

Option A: Keep voting and hope it matters this time (it won't).

Option B: Accept that democracy is broken and use market incentives instead.

The Founding Fathers were geniuses, but they designed a system for four million literate farmers, not three hundred thirty million people who get their news from a man screaming into a podcast microphone.

Democracy made sense in seventeen eighty-nine. Today, it's a cargo cult with nuclear codes.

But markets? Markets turned feudal peasants into TikTok influencers in four hundred years. Markets put computers in your pocket more powerful than what landed you on the moon (you use them to argue with strangers about whether the moon landing was real, but still). Markets work.

You're not making people better. You're building better plumbing for terrible people.

And since everyone's terrible, the plumbing will work perfectly.

Your brain wasn't built for democracy. It evolved to track one hundred fifty people and avoid tigers. It can't evaluate six trillion dollar budgets or comprehend exponential growth. For why this matters at the biological level, see Genetic Slavery. For how the resulting budget process works in practice, see Cost of War.

Regulatory Capture: How Industries Write Their Own Rules.

There are thirteen thousand seven hundred registered lobbyists in Washington. Half of them used to work in the government they're now bribing, which on your planet is called "a career path" rather than "corruption." In 2023, corporations spent four point one billion dollars on lobbying.

Divide that by five hundred thirty-five members of Congress and you get seven point seven million dollars in professional persuasion surrounding each congressman who earns less than a mid-level dentist. The mystery is not that they're corrupt. The mystery is that any of them aren't.

Citizens United made corporations people who can donate unlimited money through Super PACs. Corporations are people now, which is odd because you can't imprison a corporation, give it chemotherapy, or make it feel shame. Pharmaceutical companies write their own regulations.
The Medicare Modernization Act banned the government from negotiating drug prices. That's why insulin that costs six dollars to make costs you three hundred dollars. A five thousand percent markup. Your street-corner drug dealers find this excessive, and they don't even have shareholders.

The military-industrial complex distributes operations across forty-two states so that cutting any program threatens local jobs in enough congressional districts to make it impossible. It's a tumor that grew its own blood supply.
The Pentagon has never passed an audit but somehow knows it needs more money (they can't tell you where the last trillion went, but they're very confident about needing the next one). Pharma employs three lobbyists for every member of Congress.
The F.D.A. gets seventy-five percent of its drug review budget from the companies it regulates. For the full accounting, see Cost of War and F.D.A.: Unsafe and Ineffective.

The system maintains itself with the elegant efficiency of a parasite that keeps its host alive just enough to keep feeding. Cures are a one-time payment; treatments are recurring revenue.
Approving a bad drug ends careers; delaying a good one ends lives (but not careers, and careers are what matter to people with careers). Everyone who matters wins. Everyone who's dying loses. The system works perfectly. It's just optimized for the wrong thing.

The Solution They Don't Want.

The whole system runs on one trick: each American loses one hundred dollars to corruption (not worth a phone call). Each corporation gains one hundred million dollars (worth a thousand phone calls, a lobbyist army, and a senator's vacation home).

But what if curing disease was more profitable than treating it? What if peace paid better than war? That's what a one percent treaty does. It doesn't fight the corruption machine. It feeds it different inputs. You're going to out-bribe the bribers with math.

P.S. - If this chapter depressed you, good. Depression is the correct response to your political system. But remember: the same corruption that lets corporations buy politicians also lets you buy them back. Politicians don't have principles. They have prices.
And prices, unlike principles, can be negotiated.