The faults of the representative democracy system

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1) Popularity Contests

In the USA, Britain, Australia, it seems to me that nobody cares much about the policies, not that they matter much (see 2). It's about the projected personalities of the leaders of the major parties. Thus the discussion of female or gay leaders. Why should it matter? But unfortuately it does.

2) Limited Choices

Party One offers:

• Subject 1, policy A.
• Subject 2, policy A.
• Subject 3, policy A.

Party Two offers:

• Subject 1, policy B.
• Subject 2, policy B.
• Subject 3, policy B.

So if you want to vote some way on Subject 4 or 5? Bad luck. It's not on the table.

3) Easy To Manipulate

In any heirarchy system, control is more easily exerted over that system the higher up the heirarchy you exert it. If there is one person at the top, you exert control over that one person to control the entire heirarchy. This is an inherent weakness in our current systems of government.

Noam Chomsky has done a lot of research on the use of things like "appearance" in general elections. One of the purposes of the mainstream media is to influence support for conventional political topics, and since many of these topics, such as free trade agreements and privatizing health care, are off the agenda in most population circles, the idea is to focus on external traits, such as appearance and speech mannerisms. This was a huge factor in the so-called Clinton scandals, for there were numerous and completely ridiculous mainstream discussions about the fact that, apparently, "Clinton quivers his lips when he lies." Whether this is true or not has nothing to do with any sort of political subject matter and is used as a public diversion.

In talking about hierarchies, they are genuine methods of social control. They are beloved by the capitalist system because they enable dominance and control in a downward fashion. Those at the top make the orders and submit them down to the bottom, and the pay scale follows that route as well. The majority of workers are at the bottom tiers of most conventional hierarchies, forcing them to fight amongst one another to get a promotion to move up in the corporate ladder. Such hierarchies ensure that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, typically those who are at the upper levels of the hierarchies.

There is a new management theory called "chaos theory" -- which states that order can be derived from chaos, and is an alternative to conventional hierarchical models. In utilizing chaos theory, one can stipulate that the most important happenings do not operate within the core, but rather the outer edges. This means that those who stand around the edges actually have better ideas than those at the core. In other words, those who operated on the fringes of society are to be admired.

Cooperatives, workers' collectives, assemblies, councils and other similar organizations generally have far better ethical standards than firms that rely on hierarchies as their source of organization, e.g. corporations.

- Ray M -

If a person at the top of a hierarchy can be controlled then he really isn't at the top. He is just a figurehead or a puppet.

You might want to do some research on the "proportional representation" system and the hare-clark voting system.

What they together mean is that places in a parliament have to be allocated in proportion to the votes. Tasmania has it, The ACT has it (modified slightly), and NZ has it.

I really like the NZ system.

This is a very simplistic way of looking at it - because they have two layers of seat allocation, and it is a little bit like how the federal senate in Australia gets elected.

So if you have
Party A with 30% vote then Party A gets 30% of the seats. Should one member elected this way - quit then the new person gets selected from the Party A pool
Party B has 20% then Party B gets 20% of seats...
down to the really weird
Party X (or whatever) who gets 5% of the vote - gets 5% of the seats.

So it often means small parties can band together to form government and it means a lot more diversity of opinion in Parliament so a lot more representation. There are a lot more people that need to be kept happy. Usually if party A have 30% of the vote and a nice collection of second preferences from the more extreme parties they will get control of the government ie more than 50% of the seats, and ignore everyone who doesn't think like them. Which I don't like either.

http://www.accuratedemocracy.com/d_intro.htm

The downside of it - is the coalitions you get to form government can unform and then form again in new patterns very quickly. The ACT had major problems with whether or not their water was going to have fluoride in it or not. The majority and dentists wanted it, but there were a small number of people who claimed they were allergic to it so chaos reigned for a while. ACT voters fixed this by not voting for the loonies who insisted on removing the fluoride. Voters aren't completely stupid. When they wanted things to speed up they'd vote all for the major parties. When they were pissed off or wanted small issues dealt with - they could vote in the little guys. I like it because nobody feels left out or ignored for long.

The downside, Wobbegong, is that you're still left with the problems I initially mentioned. However, I believe we now have the technology to implement a genuine democracy. Not that anyone really wants that.

The idea behind American democracy(or our republic, however you want to look at it) is to protect the minority from the majority and vice versa. Our founding fathers did not want direct democracy as that might result in populism which might have drastic negative affects on society(debtors printing off cheap money to pay lenders, massive redistributions of wealth that would damage the economy, having silver and gold currency at an exchange rate that does not even reflect the real market values, etc). We want the influence of powerful organizations to keep things stable and to keep our economy solid and stuff, masses tend to overreact and want stupid things. However, we did not want some dictatorship by the minority either oppressing us and stifling our strength due to some desire to keep power. Our republic is a good compromise between the 2, our organizations and such have power but so do our people.

Though, yeah, I did get distracted, anyway, the big reason for things is that people are stupid or see value in traits that are valueless, which explains the first one, I mean, people do criticize presidents on perceived traits and those affect presidential effectiveness on morale. The 2nd one about the party system is that some issues politicians do not want to put on the table, too much division involved. Before the civil war, slavery would be at times a topic that nobody would even touch in presidential elections, nobody wanted to rock the boat, which makes sense considering it ended up leading to war. Anyway, hopefully I addressed most things.

The end product of any government, democratic, despotic or any other -ic, is tyranny. Tyranny of the majority or tyranny of a king with a big army don't differ by much. You can hide behind the paper shield of a constitution if you want, but in the end, it's really just a piece of paper (kind of like a college diploma).

Governments of any type result in tyranny because every type of government is the same: nonexistant. Governments do not actually exist. They cannot do anything whatsoever.

What we mean when we say 'government' is a bunch of people in one area have all agreed that something which doesn't exist, does. Then they act as if it does exist, and in the process mimic the functions the government would perform if it actually could.

So basically governments are just a religion.

Scaramouche

The issues you mentioned in the first post are completely addressed by proportional representation - because the little guys can actually club together and beat the big guys, so anyone who is trying to manipulate the system - has to manipulate everyone.

But who is to say they wouldn't do that for every voter as well. That's what television advertising does.

If you only govern by majority rules then anyone who isn't part of the majority will suffer. But maybe women will finally get a fair go. The other trouble with running things based on "public opinion" is public opinion is very fickle and can flip on a dime. It's much harder to make the wheels of government flip on a dime – just updating the tax system can take months to plan and implement.

Seigneur
If there is no government – who is building the roads, and public schools and hospitals (we have public hospitals in Australia).

---
(for anyone)

The trouble I see with the USA government is that it seems to have been taken over by rich people who just want to make a profit no matter what happens to everybody else on the planet. If they keep that up – presently we will hear "let them eat cake" and 37 million poor people and stuff knows how many frustrated middle class people will all "go postal" at once.

The trouble with the Australian Govt is we seem to be brown-nosing the USA government. I still haven't figured out why – there really is nothing in it for us, not even our rich people. I might have to move to NZ.

The trouble with the technology to implement real democracy – yes we have it but could we trust it.

Personally I'd be very happy with a benevolent dictatorship – they could operate with long term vision for the good of everyone and the planet. But how would you get that? And what would be good for some would be bad for others...

We have proportional representation now, and it hasn't fixed anything. We still have a popularity contest deciding who gets the hot-seat, and it's still just a two-party system with limited options, and it's still a heirarchy and tuhs easy to manipulate from the top down.


And in our current system, the minority rules and the majority suffers.


At least true democracy means the people get what they deserve. Experience would hopefully teach people to rule wisely.

frist pass the post system is evil. proportional represention is need but there are pros and cons to every form of goverement.

Basic idea for a better democractic system.

Any group with registered members comprising more than 1% of the population may form a political party.

Any citizen may be a registered member of up to three political parties.

Citizens can vote on any issue within a political party of which they are a member.

Within any political party, a 75% majority is required to pass.

Anything passed within a party can be brought before the parliament for a vote among the parties.

All political parties are represented in a parliament, each has an equal vote on all matters. Each party is repersented by someone elected from among the members.

Within parliament, comprised of all political parties, a 75% majority is required to pass.

Anything not decided upon within a month goes directly to a plebiscite, which we have the technology to implement.

No head of state. The idea of having one individual at the top is anachronistic and pointless. All it achieves is to generate popularity contests for leadership. The parliament, comprised of a large number of people, should be seen as the representation of the people.

All decisions affecting the nation (including going to war) need to be passed by the parliament.

All employees of the bureaucracy make 1.5 times the average wage.

Government employees' wages are not included when determining the average wage.

All public assets owned by the people, and their use controlled by the parliament.

No state govermnents. Having state governments is a complete waste of money. It doubles up on bureaucratic roles, which could all be done on the federal level. One national Roads department, for exmaple. One national Health department. One national bureaucracy. Repeating the structure and positions in each and every state and territory is a complete waste of resources.

Anyone working for the government (for the tax-payers) agrees to have their personal finances open to public review. If you're a cop, a politician, a judge, a bureaucrat, a general... the public can get online and have a look at all associated bank accounts. This is to help prevent corruption, ensure that those volunteering to work for the people are doing so because they wish to serve the people, and not because they're out for money.

Are you actually naive enough to think that THIS system is impervious to corruption as well??

Ok, first thing is that the entire voting system of this system seems messed up. A party comprised of 39% of the population is equal to one that is only comprised by 1% of the population. This is not going to work effectively, either minority groups have too much power or majority groups will split up into alliances of 40 or something parties that are kept in line by mutual interests. This aspect is either broken or complicated.

1.5 times minimum wage is not a lot and is does not provide good incentive for people to take on higher jobs within a government organization. Bureacrats are not faceless, mindless, fools, each one indistinguishable from the other. No, in fact, bureacracy has been called the 4th branch of the US government and highly skilled minds need to be paid well to stay within this bureacracy or else the free-market will snatch them up. If we institute a rule like this then we will just have a stupid incompetent bureacracy that will increase the red tape and be generally ineffective.

State governments are required because a national government cannot reliably ascertain the requirements of every state. The fact is that some division is needed to take care of the needs of each area of the nation and state governments act in that manner. They reduce corruption by being accountable to the people of that state, unlike a bureacracy which is accountable to almost noone. State governments really allow a more personal level of democracy, they create a working level of management of an areas needs, and to abolish them is like abolishing city governments and is counter-productive and even harmful to the system.

Well, considering all of the other hoops that you are making government workers go through and the negative things you add on to their positions I don't think that we would be able to get the cream of the crop or even decent employees. We would probably get the losers that McDonalds rejects as employees. Nobody, unless they are desperate for a job would take a job under the conditions that you have laid out. The head of the CIA would be a high school drop out and his employees would be individuals of the intelligence level of the 3 stooges. We don't want restrictions and all of that that great on employees, if we do that then nobody will work for the government except for the really really stupid.

I also dont like single member districts like in US/UK (I think)/other countries. Preportional representation seems to work so much better but nobody ever wants to do that as you dont know who you are voting for neccessarily but I dont like the two party system so theres not much other way of changing it.

Democracy is dying off in the United Kingdom.

The fascists in the Labour Party have gone some way to ensure this happens, as well as introducing the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (also known as the 'Abolition of Parliament Bill; for more on that see here (http://www.saveparliament.org.uk)) and other back-of-a-fag-packet undemocratic and authoritarian nonsense. A total sea-change is needed, really.

They could start by reforming the grossly unfair electoral system we have in this country. Any system that keeps the governing party in power with 36% of the vote surely can't be right. A form of proportional representation without a party-list system would be a good start. Also, I would like a system that brings proper democracy to all parts of the UK, rather than the present system which leaves vast tracts of the country and huge numbers of people without any voice at all.

Unless we can get people interested, though, this isn't going to happen.

Ummm Tequila Proportional Representation will allow for more small parties which will allow for more minority victories :-/.