Nice post. Regarding voting: most of Europe has some version of proportional representation by now, don't they? That might explain some of it: in much of the US, the marginal difference an individual voter makes seems non-existent. If I'm a Democrat in Hawaii, and I've never voted, there's no point to my starting voting; the state is majority Democratic. Not much point to voting as a new Republican, either. But with PR, a new vote has a small but real marginal addition to the power of its party.
jury duty: a duty, but one potentially rather disruptive to a life, at a random time, for a potentially arbitrarily long time, and for $5 a day. The Athenian jury doubled as a dole; ours isn't sufficient for that.
no subject
Regarding voting: most of Europe has some version of proportional representation by now, don't they? That might explain some of it: in much of the US, the marginal difference an individual voter makes seems non-existent. If I'm a Democrat in Hawaii, and I've never voted, there's no point to my starting voting; the state is majority Democratic. Not much point to voting as a new Republican, either. But with PR, a new vote has a small but real marginal addition to the power of its party.
jury duty: a duty, but one potentially rather disruptive to a life, at a random time, for a potentially arbitrarily long time, and for $5 a day. The Athenian jury doubled as a dole; ours isn't sufficient for that.
Regarding types of health systems, an interesting article on path dependence, and why almost no one has as socialized a system as Britain.