UK Voters

Post by **Raveen** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 7:14 am

Sad to see that Agri doesn't actually want to respond because he has some very good points. I know I'm interested in how AV would move parties towards being more centralised as I see it as requiring candidates to build a local consensus.

Dorjan · Post by **Dorjan** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 12:09 pm

I for one think that this system cannot do any harm and has a chance of doing good. So I'm voting in favour.

Adept · Post by **Adept** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 3:46 pm

Dorjan wrote:QUOTE (Dorjan @ Apr 8 2011, 03:09 PM) I for one think that this system cannot do any harm and has a chance of doing good. So I'm voting in favour.

This is what it looks like from the outside. I hope that's what the majority will end up voting for as well. Good luck

SharpFish · Post by **SharpFish** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 4:21 pm

Raveen wrote:QUOTE (Raveen @ Apr 7 2011, 11:14 PM) Sad to see that Agri doesn't actually want to respond because he has some very good points. I know I'm interested in how AV would move parties towards being more centralised as I see it as requiring candidates to build a local consensus.

Why would they? Unless people decline to use their additional preferences, the front runners will scoop up votes from those who selecxted them as the least worst option. They don't need to create consensus - not the consensus is necessarily a good thing anyway - they just need to bge not quite as bad. AV won't make any difference in this regard.

I think this whole thing is a distraction, no more than Cleggite political grandstanding so he can claim a feather in his cap from his otherwise abject surrender to the Tories.

SharpFish · Post by **SharpFish** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 4:31 pm

Adept wrote:QUOTE (Adept @ Apr 6 2011, 03:02 AM) Raveen is definitely on to something. Even if the resulting system is just a step in the right direction, it will also erode the two party system, and hopefully lead to better systems in the future.

Would that be a good thing?

Post by **Raveen** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 4:47 pm

In terms of reflecting the wishes of the electorate, yes. At the moment you have to shoehorn your views into one of 2.5 camps (something I suspect that you, for one, can't do SharpFish).

I've always seen PR resulting in 5 roughly equally sized parties:

Old Labour
New Labour
Lib Dems
Ken Clark Tories
Thatcherites

There will also no doubt be a bunch of other minority groups and single issue parties that could get meaningful votes too. All this is better for the democratic process in that it gives people meaningful choices and forces parties to actually listen to voters and deliver when given the opportunity.

SharpFish · Post by **SharpFish** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:36 pm

Raveen wrote:QUOTE (Raveen @ Apr 8 2011, 08:47 AM) In terms of reflecting the wishes of the electorate, yes. At the moment you have to shoehorn your views into one of 2.5 camps

Which is the same least-worst choice you get to make with AV. At any rate, the point is specious; lets say every microgroup with a shared view achieved parliamentary representation, what then? Well, sooner or later you have to come down to making decisions, enacting legislation, etc. And seeing as none of these microgroups can marshall a majority, they have to compromise. And in compromising, they defeat entirely the reason for which they were separately represented in the first place.

QUOTE (something I suspect that you, for one, can't do SharpFish).[/quote]

All political parties are inherently comprised of people with minimal, not maximal, levels of agreement and consensus. But the people you are talking about aren't even members of political parties - they're voters. In which case, they have opted out of engaging in the process by which a political party formulates the positions it will adopt. So, whose fault is that?

If you want politics to reflect your views, you have to get involved with politics. As Socrates observed, the penalty of the wise, who refuse to participate in government, is to be governed by worse men.

I am am member of a political party, but not a parliamentary one.

QUOTE There will also no doubt be a bunch of other minority groups and single issue parties that could get meaningful votes too. All this is better for the democratic process in that it gives people meaningful choices and forces parties to actually listen to voters and deliver when given the opportunity.[/quote]

But as I've already pointed out, it does nothing of the sort. It doesn't give "the people" meaningful choices, because once again all the choices were formulated by others, and will be washed out by compromise before anything gets presented as a bill anyway. And it certainly doesn't force parties to actually listen to them, because the populace are now totally divorced from the process by which parties establish their manifestoes, and even joining a party will be a largely useless exercise, as candidates will be centrally selected.

PR will be an excellent means for moving power away from the people and into the hands of a technocratic, managerial elite. And in doing so, it will only lead to more alienation from politics, more resentment, less democracy. As for delivering, how will that be MORE feasible when everything comes down to negotiation? Contrast, for example, the Obama administration's cack-handed attempts to get a universal health bill through by compromising with Republicans, and the Tories $#@!-you austerity budget. We can dicker over whether these are Good Things or not, but which of themis more EFFECTIVE?

Now I want a government that can get @#(! done, and which lives or dies by the success or failures of its policies. But what we'll get with PR is a soup of permanent compromise, rotating personell, half-measures and indefinite committees, where blame and triumph are equally diluted, where the public just leaves them to get on with it but nothing changes and nothing makes any difference any way.

Adept · Post by **Adept** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:46 pm

SharpFish wrote:QUOTE (SharpFish @ Apr 8 2011, 07:31 PM) Would that be a good thing?

Are you kidding me? Are you actually arguing that a two party system is better for democracy?

SharpFish · Post by **SharpFish** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 6:04 pm

Adept wrote:QUOTE (Adept @ Apr 8 2011, 09:46 AM) Are you kidding me? Are you actually arguing that a two party system is better for democracy?

I'm suggesting that there is a fundamental tension between capital and labour, and that this fact is what causes the two part systemn to occur so widely. An attempt to make it go away by by artififical means will not alter this underlying tension, it will simply obscure it, and deny people the ability to act on it.

So yes, I AM saying it's better for democracy. Becuase otherwise you get a false consensus that refuses to look reality in the eye.

Adept · Post by **Adept** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 6:10 pm

SharpFish wrote:QUOTE (SharpFish @ Apr 8 2011, 09:04 PM) I'm suggesting that there is a fundamental tension between capital and labour, and that this fact is what causes the two part systemn to occur so widely. An attempt to make it go away by by artififical means will not alter this underlying tension, it will simply obscure it, and deny people the ability to act on it.

Widely my foot. Both the UK and the US use outdated voting systems that create two party systems as almost unavoidable artifacts of flawed design.