Home of the Free

Pladio said:
Except that our influence is too small to be noticed by anyone outside this forum, I could even say just this topic.
Click to expand...

But that's true of almost everyone. Social consensus consists of lots and lots of very very small bits. In most societies, there are very few people who are powerful enough to make a noticeable impact on social mores purely by themselves.

Second, the influence isn't as small as you might think: while this topic will certainly be forgotten, the people who participated in it will have thought some things through a little bit more, they will have been subtly changed, and these changes will be reflected in their words and actions in the future.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
Corwin said:
Perhaps, but really so called democracy is a farce. Parties pre-select potential politicians and then offer us a limited alternative; vote for one of these 3+ political hacks, whoever gets elected will do precisely what the party tells them to, and you mug voters can believe that they are actually 'representing' your wishes!! Ha!!!!
Click to expand...

First off, just because *your* democracy may be dysfunctional, it doesn't mean *all* democracies are.

Second, if you compare your democracy to the alternatives, you'll very likely find that most of them are much worse.

(My take on democracy is that it's a pretty poor system for hiring competent managers, but it's a fairly good system for firing incompetent ones. Things only get really difficult if this part of the system breaks down.)
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
OK then, which democracies aren't dysfunctional? I can easily lump Australia, USA, UK, NZ and Canada into the same bucket!!
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
12,823
Location
Australia
You know what's interesting about all those democracies? They all have the Anglo-Saxon "winner takes all" electoral system. IMO it's rigged to create a situation where you have a "duopoly of power" and politics that emphasize division and antagonism instead of coalition-building, cooperation, and consensus-seeking. Perhaps you might want to take a look at a few systems with proportional representation? The Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway) are the textbook examples. The Netherlands is another, similar system. Slovenia is a very interesting case; they have a system that's "pure parliamentary" (they have no separate executive branch at all), yet it seems to work very well.

It's interesting, though, that you lump New Zealand and Canada into the same bucket -- they're generally regarded as rather well functioning states. Could you elaborate a bit about what, in your view, makes for a "dysfunctional democracy?"
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
It's funny in Germany... you can vote what you want, but since the two biggest partys are like old chums, they can do what they want without attention to the people ... and the smaller partys are all kind of nuts.

IMO the swiss have the only real democracy, where people can meet at the marketplace and vote about their daily buisness. At least this sounds very cool 8)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
511
Location
Franconia
Well, Belgium might be a case apart, but that multi-party system seems to be killing the country. For almost 180 years consensuses have been formed, but now we've been without a government for three months. The elections were held in June and since no party has a majority they have to find a way to create majority. The Christian-democrats which is the biggest party in the Flanders region needs to work with at least two other parties to form a government, but they don't have the same ideas as one of the two second largest parties, so they need to find two other parties to work with and then they can't find anyone. Well, it's a mess and I'm not a politician nor an expert in Belgian politics, but Belgium doesn't have a government for the moment.
Multi-party system can crumble as well.
 
Joined
Nov 13, 2006
Messages
9,191
Location
Manchester, United Kingdom
Proportional representation/multi-party systems certainly have their problems too. In particular, it won't work well without a fairly deep consensus about the basic framework for society. If there isn't enough common ground to be found to create a functioning government, then obviously it won't work out. In such a situation, the danger is that power will drop in the lap of a strong executive, leading towards an authoritarian system.

Governmental structures need a social and cultural basis that's compatible with them if you want them to work. As long as there are different cultures, there won't be a one-size-fits-all political system either.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
Edit: I trolled and thought better of it afterwards. It's awfully tempting! But I think I'd be better off not participating in these political discussions.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Nov 11, 2006
Messages
1,807
Location
Orange County, California
Greater the freedom, greater the responsibility... Moving out of your parents house means you have to pick up all the responsibilities of being independent.
 
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
560
Ah, but there are so many cultural differences in the modern multi-cultural society. Name a culture and Australia will have a significant proportion of it, as do many other countries, such as the USA. We don't all agree and personally, I think proportional representation would be a disaster here. We sort of have it with our senate and it's usually deadlocked!! I'll let the Kiwis and Canucks comment on their own systems, but having grown up in Canada, it doesn't work too well!!
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
12,823
Location
Australia
Kiwis are people from New Zealand, while Canucks is a slang term for Canadians, similar to calling Americans, Yanks!!
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
12,823
Location
Australia
Kiwis are New Zealanders and Canucks are Canadians.

In Canada, proportional representation is a bit of an issue, with the different provinces not really being equally represented by the number of ridings and associated representatives. What happens then is that certain provinces become more important than others, because they have more ridings and thus other provinces are rendered irrelevant and ignored by politicians.
The smaller parties, notably the NDP, have been pushing for improved proportional representation for a while now, but not surprisingly no headway is made.
 
Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
658
Corwin said:
Ah, but there are so many cultural differences in the modern multi-cultural society. Name a culture and Australia will have a significant proportion of it, as do many other countries, such as the USA. We don't all agree and personally, I think proportional representation would be a disaster here. We sort of have it with our senate and it's usually deadlocked!! I'll let the Kiwis and Canucks comment on their own systems, but having grown up in Canada, it doesn't work too well!!
Click to expand...

So what, then, do you think would work? In your book, is there a non-dysfunctional democracy in existence anywhere? If so, what are its characteristics? If not, what, in your book, would make for a non-dysfunctional democracy?
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
You're begging the question here!! I have not suggested that I approve of a democratic form of government!! I don't think the system works. At least not in the form it currently takes in most so called democratic countries. I really dislike 'party politics'!!
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
12,823
Location
Australia
@Corwin, what form of government do you think would work better than any form of democracy that's currently in existence? Or are you just in general curmudgeon mode?
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
A general democracy, I believe is what Corwin supports. If I'm totally mistaken please correct me.
A democracy where no parties are involved, but individuals. Where politics as a dirty business doesn't exist, where one's individual ideas are respected. Where everyone votes on what he or she thinks is right. Not democracy as we know it, to elect officials to do it for us, but we have to vote. That's the point of democracy, to have a voice in all matters concerning us and our surroundings.
 
Joined
Nov 13, 2006
Messages
9,191
Location
Manchester, United Kingdom
Pladio said:
A general democracy, I believe is what Corwin supports. If I'm totally mistaken please correct me.
A democracy where no parties are involved, but individuals. Where politics as a dirty business doesn't exist, where one's individual ideas are respected. Where everyone votes on what he or she thinks is right. Not democracy as we know it, to elect officials to do it for us, but we have to vote. That's the point of democracy, to have a voice in all matters concerning us and our surroundings.
Click to expand...

Can you give an example of such a democracy? Otherwise it's just cloud castles.

Personally, I'd love to live in an anarcho-Communist utopia with unlimited means of production, work only if you want to, and no environmental degradation. There's just the little matter of actually getting unlimited means of production with no environmental degradation.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
Just to repeat that this might NOT at all be Corwin's view on the matter but just a supposition of mine.

There isn't any at present, but it shouldn't be that hard to develop a system where everyone would go and vote in a central building on issues... It would just take away the power of the politicians... (and they won't be pleased with that)
 
Joined
Nov 13, 2006
Messages
9,191
Location
Manchester, United Kingdom
Pladio said:
Just to repeat that this might NOT at all be Corwin's view on the matter but just a supposition of mine.

There isn't any at present, but it shouldn't be that hard to develop a system where everyone would go and vote in a central building on issues... It would just take away the power of the politicians... (and they won't be pleased with that)
Click to expand...

Oh, it wouldn't. The hard part would be to develop such a system that would not very quickly be co-opted by some people more ambitious and less scrupulous than most.

For starters, you can't get everyone to vote on every single issue that needs to be decided -- that would be a full-time job. So, you'll quickly have a situation where the people will vote to delegate responsibility to someone.

And there we go again...
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom