Raveen wrote:QUOTE (Raveen @ Apr 9 2011, 05:06 AM) Fish, you seem to be under the frankly bizarre impression that in a 2 party system each party is homogeneous.
Not even remotely. I already pointed out that political parties are MINIMALLY, not maximally, organised through a consensus. Of course they are complex entities; formally those are termed factions, fractions, tendencies and sects. This is all well understood in terms of the operation of political parties as such.
QUOTE A multi party system gives people a better chance to vote for what they actually believe in and then the coalition is formed based off those beliefs. It's not perfect but no system is.[/quote]
But what you're missing is that I don't think that's a feature, I think it's a bug. Look, I'm not inherently opposed to the existence of a multitude of parties. The original Labour Party MP's split off fro the Liberals becuase they could not longer agree on a minimal consensus. This is quite correct praxis and presents no problem. But what I'm trying to point out is that if you have a multiparty system which allows people to "vote for what they beleieve in" RATHER THAN voting
effectively, in a way that actually get @#(! done, then all it does in effect is substitute a feelgood factor for actually useful politics. And seeing as I would prefer actually useful politics, I'm not at all keen.
It could, for example, be argued that the Green party should simply disband and form a Green wing of the Labour party, exercise their democratic rights to determine party policy, and achieve their goals through supporting a Labour victory. If instead they split the vote to the point that Labour can only win by forming a coalition with them the whole problem becomes different - its no longer a case of setting policy, but of haggling between party managers whose interests are often not entirely aligned with the people they purportedly represent. The overall result of which, as I've already pointed out, is to remove decision making from the grass roots and allocate to the top of the respective party heirarchies.
Now I'm not actually saying this should happen. I recognise that the Greens have significant differences with Labour and prefer to act as their own party. This is fine. But it doesn't in and of itself justify the alleged needs for them to win seats with which they can still actually do virtually nothing.
QUOTE You also seem surprised that all political parties in multi party systems fit onto the acknowledged political spectrum between socialist and conservative.[/quote]
I don't know why you come to that conclusion, I've said specifically that this is the fundamental tension within modern societies and that everything else is essenitlaly subordinated to these points. Take for example the Greens mentioned above; it is not exactly a secret that Conservative parties in general resist environmental legislation, not least becuase of the alleged deadening effect on business.
QUOTE Centrally selected candidates: Happens now, happens under AV, happens under Party list PR. What was your point exactly?[/quote]
A functioning political party doesn't have to allow that. That is much more a consequence of the hollowing out of the popular base of political parties. But it would be formally necessary in PR.
QUOTE And finally as you point out you support a party that can never get elected in the current system which means that we can effectively ignore all your views just like the government does. Until there is some sort of reform your views are worthless.[/quote]
Well no; I said it was a NON-PARLIAMENTARY party, which means we choose not to stand for election. Our point of view is that there are many other, and indeed more effective, ways to be politically active and influential than simply standing candidates. We have no ambitions to influence the government as such, we rather engage with the populace directly and have quite different overall ambitions. We wouldn't stand candidates under a PR or AV system either.
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