Proportional representation -- yea or nay?

[articul8]

Where are politicians perfectly accountable to the electorate? PR but not that PR.

Of course. I agree. But there are degrees to which people aren't accountable. Top of party lists under PR or is safe seats with 10k majorities (eg Hazel Blears) are less accountable than others.

 

[articul8]

So, you'd rather have Nazis on Barking council than no opposition, and you're condemning the Israeli electoral system. Interesting.

Actually I think there's an argument that 59 Labour and 1 BNP is better than 60 Labour councillors. Does that make me a Nazi?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I would support a system that allowed us all to cast a vote for all 650 seats, if there are 7000 candidates we should have 14000 votes, one yes and one no for each candidate. At the count all yeses should be added up, and then all noes deducted from them and the 650 top candidates after that get to keep to take their seats.

 

[butchersapron]

under PR it couldn't assume the logic that its core vote had "nowhere else to go" - they could have voted for Militant Labour or SLP or something.

OK, may have been only 2 or 3 MPs. But there would have been a left option there.

Is that answer to me? Have major governing parties decided to move rightwards 'with the times' or split over such issues in countries with PR?

 

[scifisam]

On the surface of it I think it is a good idea. However, I think that the actual way it is implemented is critical to the value of such a system.

Yep, that's where I'm at too.

 

[sihhi]

no - wouldn't have happened. Why would it?

'Politics is the shadow cast on society by business.'

Business wins in battles of 1980s - end of secondary action, end of closed shop, start of council outsourcing, rise of JIT technology, HRM, teamworking, business studies, financialisation of 'capital products', offshore investment potentials in third world, containerisation + ro-ro transport.
Hence business determines paramenters of 'national interest' and electable politics in 1990s.

 

[1%er]

A fully proportional system would have given the Nazis (BNP) 12 seats. Is that what you want? Is it?

Well it is a case of you want demorcracy or you don't

 

[articul8]

Is that answer to me? Have major governing parties decided to move rightwards 'with the times' or split over such issues in countries with PR?

I'm not saying PR is the solution to the problems of liberal democracy. it isn;t. But is it preferable to a system that works to conceal the support that socialist or green candidates actually enjoy? Surely yes?

And IWCA? Wouldn't it be better that they could appeal for support across an area, and get representation even when they hadn't got a majority concentrated in one particular ward?

If you're in favour of abstention on principle - Ok there's a legitimate argument to be had. Otherwise, what is the issue (unless you're after a Tory [or Labour] majority at some time in future?

 

[butchersapron]

I'm not saying PR is the solution to the problems of liberal democracy. it isn;t. But is it preferable to a system that works to conceal the support that socialist or green candidates actually enjoy? Surely yes?

And IWCA? Wouldn't it be better that they could appeal for support across an area, and get representation even when they hadn't got a majority concentrated in one particular ward?

If you're in favour of abstention on principle - Ok there's a legitimate argument to be had. Otherwise, what is the issue (unless you're after a Tory [or Labour] majority at some time in future?

Sorry, what's the answer to my question? It's quite important.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm not saying PR is the solution to the problems of liberal democracy. it isn;t. But is it preferable to a system that works to conceal the support that socialist or green candidates actually enjoy? Surely yes?

And IWCA? Wouldn't it be better that they could appeal for support across an area, and get representation even when they hadn't got a majority concentrated in one particular ward?

If you're in favour of abstention on principle - Ok there's a legitimate argument to be had. Otherwise, what is the issue (unless you're after a Tory [or Labour] majority at some time in future?

PR for our own ends, fine, if we can use it (i'm not sure we can) PR for the national system as another form of more modernised legitimation (which is all electoral reform offers). Nein danke.

 

[articul8]

Is that answer to me? Have major governing parties decided to move rightwards 'with the times' or split over such issues in countries with PR?

There are few cases where a FPTP system gives way to a PR system There are cases like Berlusconi where the opposite trend applies.

The German SPD saw Lafontaine split to help create Die Linke. Robin Cook opposed the war but had "nowhere else to go".

 

[articul8]

PR for our own ends, fine, if we can use it (i'm not sure we can) PR for the national system as another form of more modernised legitimation (which is all electoral reform offers). Nein danke.

I'm for PR instrumentally. As a resolution to the difficulties of liberal democracy, no thanks.

 

[sihhi]

There are few cases where a FPTP system gives way to a PR system There are cases like Berlusconi where the opposite trend applies.

The German SPD saw Lafontaine split to help create Die Linke. Robin Cook opposed the war but had "nowhere else to go".

But Die Linke instantly succumbed to the dictates of capital and the SPD.

Four weeks after German state elections, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Left Party (Die Linke) have wasted no time in forming a coalition to govern the state of Brandenburg. The Left Party has agreed to practically all the terms demanded by the SPD.
This is not very surprising, seeing as the political programmes of both parties are pretty much identical. And in two controversial areas—massive public sector job cuts and lignite power plants—the Left Party has totally capitulated to the SPD line.
As demanded by the SPD, the numbers employed in public services will be reduced from the current 51,000 to 40,000 over the next few years. The Left Party, which likes to pose as the defender of the social welfare state, has taken on the role of destroying every fifth job in the public service sector.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/bran-n10.shtml

Why is the creation of Die Linke a way forward?

 

[articul8]

would it have been better for Die Linke never to have existed, and German voters disillusioned with the SPD left with "nowhere else to go"?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

'Politics is the shadow cast on society by business.'

Business wanted unions? longer holidays? The NHS? I think that's too simplistic. Plenty of concessions have been won over the years that business did not want, and much of what Thatcher did, in particular, was far from inevitable. Her particular dogma of monetarism was a social and economic disaster that many in business did not support. It's easy to forget how bad Thatcher was for the British economy – she was pretty disastrous on narrow economic grounds, increasing public spending while cutting services and promoting policies that vastly increased welfare costs.

 

[sihhi]

would it have been better for Die Linke never to have existed, and German voters disillusioned with the SPD left with "nowhere else to go"?

Not arguing about electoral or non-electoral, and not being funny, but the German voters disillusioned with the SPD end up getting the SPD by voting Die Linke.

 

[articul8]

There were (are?) genuine tensions in the emergence and development of the West German (esp Berlin) WASG and its development into Die Linke.

Existence of PR doesn't in itself mean these are resolved to the right or to the left. Just as it didn't make SSP and Solidarity split.

It doesn't answer questions. It just helps overcome a situation where questions don't even get asked.

 

[butchersapron]

Business wanted unions? longer holidays? The NHS? I think that's too simplistic. Plenty of concessions have been won over the years that business did not want, and much of what Thatcher did, in particular, was far from inevitable. Her particular dogma of monetarism was a social and economic disaster that many in business did not support. It's easy to forget how bad Thatcher was for the British economy – she was pretty disastrous on narrow economic grounds, increasing public spending while cutting services and promoting policies that vastly increased welfare costs.

That wasn't politics, that was stuff co-opted by politics. And yes, business set up unions in japan and the US elsewhere as part and parcel of their functioning. They also wrote laws about how business should operate around the world,. . (and once more, monetarism was only the first two years of thatcher, hers was an anti-monetarist period)

 

[sihhi]

Business wanted unions? longer holidays? The NHS? I think that's too simplistic. Plenty of concessions have been won over the years that business did not want, and much of what Thatcher did, in particular, was far from inevitable. Her particular dogma of monetarism was a social and economic disaster that many in business did not support. It's easy to forget how bad Thatcher was for the British economy – she was pretty disastrous on narrow economic grounds, increasing public spending while cutting services and promoting policies that vastly increased welfare costs.

Those concessions are won in struggle - basically outside of the arena of parliamentary politics. Parliamentary politics diverts, recoups from and claims the credit for these concessions.

No one argued that what business does is inevitable either. Much planning with several contingency options are always considered.

Clearly there is no single pure thing - business - there are many wings of business owners and their interests are varied and not all of them supported Thatcher or her policies. But they contributed to the investment strike of the 1970s which brought down Callaghan. They contributed to sabotaging the Bullock Report. They let Thatcher happen. Many also did contribute financially to the Conservatives, although a minority contributed funds to Labour too.

btw I'm not sure what 'narrow economic grounds' are? do you mean the rate of profit or what?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

(and once more, monetarism was only the first two years of thatcher, hers was an anti-monetarist period)

Long enough to cause enormous damage, though, no? The first two years of Thatcher were economically catastrophic.

I accept that having an organised workforce with leaders you can negotiate with can be good for businesses.

@sihhi, of course concessions are won through struggle, but the changes that those struggles win are enacted through the political system.

 

[TAE]

One member, one vote,
one percent of the vote, one percent of the seats.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

btw I'm not sure what 'narrow economic grounds' are? do you mean the rate of profit or what?

I mean economic growth, manufacturing output, government receipts of taxes, that sort of thing. Thatcher's economic mismanagement meant that the money from privatisation and oil was hoovered up by the payments that needed to be made to avoid civil unrest. Her dogmatic stance regarding, for instance, social housing ended up costing the government billions in extra housing payments.

She managed to increase public spending while cutting services and selling off a whole raft of assets, the sale of which has left the country severely weakened. The very grounds that those who defend Thatcher usually highlight are in reality the areas of her clearest failures.

 

[sihhi]

I mean economic growth, manufacturing output, government receipts of taxes, that sort of thing. Thatcher's economic mismanagement meant that the money from privatisation and oil was hoovered up by the payments that needed to be made to avoid civil unrest. Her dogmatic stance regarding, for instance, social housing ended up costing the government billions in extra housing payments.

But it lead to a massive long-term growth in business sectors like estate agency, banking, property dealing, insurance etc.

Business was happy for payments to be made via DHSS as it was then. The disenfranchised and jobless are atomised, made to fill dozens of forms, forced to do resits and retraining and are thus made less able to collectively assert their pressure/demands for jobs. Instead of "Work or riot" as it was in the 1920s or before, the payments and benefits system as it was then (and as it is now) meant unity was much more difficult to organise.

Privatisation was a business-led move, private businesses took over state assets and competed, consolidated and squeezed consumers under oligopolistic conditions and accrued greater profits.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

But it lead to a massive long-term growth in business sectors like estate agency, banking, property dealing, insurance etc.

Establishing the conditions for the economy to tank as it has done – not a smart move, speaking on behalf of capital.

Business was happy for payments to be made via DHSS as it was then. The disenfranchised and jobless are atomised, made to fill dozens of forms, forced to do resits and retraining and are thus made less able to collectively assert their pressure/demands for jobs. Instead of "Work or riot" as it was in the 1920s or before, the payments and benefits system as it was then (and as it is now) meant unity was much more difficult to organise.

That's an interesting take, and I agree in substance, although again, from a capital perspective, I would argue that it was extremely short-sighted. Long-term investment demands quite the opposite, but then, what is good for an investor who wants a return in three years may be bad for the investor who wants a return in 10 years, and vice-versa. What is certainly true is that Thatcherism promoted short-term investment thinking.

Privatisation was a business-led move, private businesses took over state assets and competed, consolidated and squeezed consumers under oligopolistic conditions and accrued greater profits.

Yes, certainly. It was a capital-led move. We might be crossing our wires over language here. When you say 'business' you mean capital, no?

 

[ericjarvis]

When somebody shows me a form of PR that reduces rather than increases the power of the national political parties then I'll be all for it. Until then I'll continue to believe that the way forward is to try to get as many people as possible to vote against party hacks when they have them presented as candidates.

 

[Idaho]

The only people PR will change the game for is the lib-dems and the dominant interests they represent. The electoral system is not the main problem - the main problem is that society is run in the interests of a group of interlocking elites whose power is mainly in the economic sphere but whose also use a system of political legitimation to defend or extend their interests. This system of political legitimation stems from that economic dominance, it's a secondary feature. Changing it won't change the system - it'll just make the way legitimation occurs slightly different. What will happen under PR is that those dominant interests will adapt to the new system and make it its own as much as FPTP ever was - look at other countries with PR, the same interests dominant totally there, they're just elected differently. Labour, the tories and the lib-dems will sit on PR and leave zero room for anything else. If you really want democracy you should be calling for economic democracy not PR.

While I agree with the broad thrust of what you are saying, I think it's worth noting that in our style of party politics (and the yanks) lobby groups are disproportionately powerful. PR would at least allow for non-establishment voices in parliament. I mean there might actually be someone worth voting for who has a chance of getting in. I know the revolutionary line is to ignore all these worldy concerns and await the marxist rapture, but surely there is something to be said for the odd critical and intelligent voice in parliament who isn't just a career politician.

 

[butchersapron]

We got that now. We always have had. What diff does/did it make?

 

[butchersapron]

BTW lib-demmers, do not assume that your 22% under a FTP system will be replicated under a PR model - half your votes are on loan from the real parties and i don't think the swing back the other way would make up for the loss, not if you look at where votes come from/go.

 

[Idaho]

We got that now. We always have had. What diff does/did it make?

We got what? Someone worth voting for? You must be living in a fortunate constituency.

 

[Idaho]

BTW lib-demmers, do not assume that your 22% under a FTP system will be replicated under a PR model - half your votes are on loan from the real parties and i don't think the swing back the other way would make up for the loss, not if you look at where votes come from/go.

I think that their votes would go to other new parties, rather than to the big two.