Other Politicky Stuff

OK, I know I talked about politics last time, and no I don’t want to start another series on this, but I actually found when writing my last post that I got very rapidly sidetracked when I tried to use voter turnout as a way of demonstrating the fact that everyone hates their politicians, and I thought I might dedicate a post to this particular train of thought as well.

You see, across the world, but predominantly in the developed west where the right to choose our leaders has been around for ages, less and less people are turning out each time to vote.  By way of an example, Ronald Reagan famously won a ‘landslide’ victory when coming to power in 1980- but only actually attracted the vote of 29% of all eligible voters. In some countries, such as Australia, voting is mandatory, but thoughts about introducing such a system elsewhere have frequently met with opposition and claims that it goes against people’s democratic right to abstain from doing so (this argument is largely rubbish, but no time for that now).

A lot of reasons have been suggested for this trend, among them a sense of political apathy, laziness, and the idea that we having the right to choose our leaders for so long has meant we no longer find such an idea special or worth exercising. For example, the presidential election in Venezuela – a country that underwent something of a political revolution just over a decade ago and has a history of military dictatorships, corruption and general political chaos – a little while ago saw a voter turnout of nearly 90% (incumbent president Hugo Chavez winning with 54% of the vote to win his fourth term of office in case you were interested) making Reagan look boring by comparison.

However, another, more interesting (hence why I’m talking about it) argument has also been proposed, and one that makes an awful lot of sense. In Britain there are 3 major parties competing for every seat, and perhaps 1 or two others who may be standing in your local area. In the USA, your choice is pretty limited to either Obama or Romney, especially if you’re trying to avoid the ire of the rabidly aggressive ‘NO VOTE IS A VOTE FOR ROMNEY AND HITLER AND SLAUGHTERING KITTENS’ brigade. Basically, the point is that your choice of who to vote for is limited to usually less than 5 people, and given the number of different issues they have views on that mean something to you the chance of any one of them following your precise political philosophy is pretty close to zero.

This has wide reaching implications extending to every corner of democracy, and is indicative of one simple fact; that when the US Declaration of Independence was first drafted some 250 years ago and the founding fathers drew up what would become the template for modern democracy, it was not designed for a state, or indeed a world, as big and multifaceted as ours. That template was founded on the basis of the idea that one vote was all that was needed to keep a government in line and following the will of the masses, but in our modern society (and quite possibly also in the one they were designing for) that is simply not the case. Once in power, a government can do almost what it likes (I said ALMOST) and still be confident that they will get a significant proportion of the country voting for them; not only that, but that their unpopular decisions can often be ‘balanced out’ by more popular, mass-appeal ones, rather than their every decision being the direct will of the people.

One solution would be to have a system more akin to Greek democracy, where every issue is answered by referendum which the government must obey. However, this presents just as many problems as it answers; referendums are very expensive and time-consuming to set up and perform, and if they became commonplace it could further enhance the existing issue of voter apathy. Only the most actively political would vote in every one, returning the real power to the hands of a relative few who, unlike previously, haven’t been voted in. However, perhaps the most pressing issue with this solution is that it rather renders the role of MPs, representatives, senators and even Prime Ministers & Presidents rather pointless. What is the point of our society choosing those who really care about the good of their country, have worked hard to slowly rise up the ranks and giving them a chance to determine how their country is governed, if we are merely going to reduce their role to ones of administrators and form fillers? Despite the problems I mentioned last time out, of all the people we’ve got to choose from politicians are probably the best people to have governing us (or at least the most reliably OK, even if it’s simply because we picked them).

Plus, politics is a tough business, and what is the will of the people is not necessarily always what’s best for the country as a whole. Take Greece at the moment; massive protests are (or at least were; I know everyone’s still pissed off about it) underway due to the austerity measures imposed by the government, because of the crippling economic suffering that is sure to result. However, the politicians know that such measures are necessary and are refusing to budge on the issue- desperate times call for difficult decisions (OK, I know there were elections that almost entirely centred on this decision that sided with austerity, but shush- you’re ruining my argument). To pick another example, President Obama (and several Democrat candidates before him) have met with huge opposition to the idea of introducing a US national healthcare system, basically because Americans hate taxes. Nonetheless, this is something he believes very strongly in, and has finally managed to get through congress; if he wins the elections later this year, we’ll see how well he executes.

In short, then, there are far too many issues, too many boxes to balance and ideas to question, for all protesting in a democratic society to take place at the ballot box. Is there a better solution to waving placards in the street and sending strongly worded letters? Do those methods at all work? In all honesty, I don’t know- that whole internet petitions get debated in parliament thing the British government recently imported from Switzerland is a nice idea, but, just like more traditional forms of protest, gives those in power no genuine categorical imperative to change anything. If I had a solution, I’d probably be running for government myself (which is one option that definitely works- just don’t all try it at once), but as it is I am nothing more than an idle commentator thinking about an imperfect system.

Yeah, I struggle for conclusions sometimes.

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The Power of the Vote

Winston Churchill once described democracy as ‘the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried’, and to be honest he may have had a point. Despite being championed throughout modern culture and interpretations of history as the ultimate in terms of freedom and representation of the common people, it is certainly not without its flaws. Today I would like to focus on just one in particular, one whose relevance has become ever more important in today’s multi-faceted existence: the power of a vote.

Voting is, of course, the core principle of democracy, a simple and unequivocal solution of indicating who most people would prefer as their tyrannical overlord/general manager and representative for the next five or so years. Not does it allow the common people to control who is in power, it also allows them control over that person once they are in that position, for any unpopular decisions they make over the course of his tenure will surely come back to haunt them come the next election.

This principle works superbly so long as the candidate in question can be judged against a simple criteria, a sort of balance sheet of good and bad as directly applicable to you. As such, the voting principle works absolutely fine given a small enough situation, where there are only a few issues directly applicable to the candidate in question- a small local community for instance. Thus, the performance of the incumbent candidate and the promises of any challengers can be evaluated against simple, specific issues and interests, and the voting process is representative of who people think will do the best for them.

Now, let us consider the situation when things get bigger- take the electoral process for electing a Prime Minister, for example. Now, a voter in Britain does not directly elect his or her PM, but instead elects a Member of Parliament for his area, and whichever party he is in affects who will get the top job eventually. The same thing actually happens in the US Presidential elections to help prevent hung parliaments, but the difference in Britain is that MP’s actually have power and fulfil the roles of Representatives/Congressmen as well. Thus, any voter has to consider a whole host of issues: which party each candidate is from and where said party stands on the political spectrum; what the policies of the various competitors are; how many of that myriad of policies agree or disagree with your personal opinion; how their standpoints on internet freedom/abortion/whatever else is of particular interest to you compare to yours; whether they look like they will represent you in Parliament or just chirp away party lines, and what issues they are particularly keen on addressing, to name but a few in the most concise way possible. That’s an awful lot of angles to consider, and the chance of any one candidate agreeing with any one voter on every one of those issues is fairly slim. This means that no matter who you vote for (unless you run for office yourself, a tactic that is happily becoming more and more popular lately), no candidate is ever going to accurately represent your views of their own accord, and you’ll simply have to make do with the best of a bad job. The other, perhaps even more unfortunate, practical upshot of this is that a candidate can make all sorts of unpopular decisions, but still get in come the next election on the grounds that his various other, more popular, policies or standpoints are still considered preferable to his opponent.

Then, we must take into account the issue of ‘safe seats’- areas where the majority of voters are so set in their ways when it comes to supporting one party or another that a serial killer wearing the appropriate rosette could still get into power. Here the floating voters, those who are most likely to swing one way or the other and thus affect who gets in, have next to no influence on the eventual outcome. In these areas especially, the candidate for the ‘safe’ party can be held responsible for next to nothing that he does, because those who would be inclined to punish him at the ballot box are unable to swing the eventual outcome.

All this boils down to a simple truth- that in a large situation involving a lot of people and an awful lot of mitigating factors, one candidate can never be truly representative of all his constituents’ wishes and can often not be held accountable at the ballot box for his more unpopular decisions. Sure, as a rule candidates do like to respect the wishes of the mob where possible just on the off-chance that one unpopular decision could be the straw that breaks his next re-election campaign. But it nonetheless holds true that a candidate can (if he wants) usually go ‘you know what, screw what they want’ a few times during his tenure and get away with it, particularly if those decisions occur early in his time in office and are thus largely forgotten come the next election- and that can cause the fundamental principles of democracy to break down.

However, whilst this might seem like a depressing prospect, there is a glimmer of hope, and it comes from a surprising source. You see, whilst one is perfectly capable of making a very good living out of politics, it is certainly not the best paid career in the world- if you have a lust for money, you would typically go into business or perhaps medicine (if you were really going to get cynical about it). Most politicians go into politics nowadays not because they have some all-consuming lust for power or because they want to throw their country’s finances around, but because they have strong political views and would like to be able to change the world for the better, and because they care about the political system. It is simply too much effort to try and work up the political ladder for personal and corrupt reasons when there are far easier and more lucrative roads to power and riches elsewhere. Thus, your average politician is not simply some power-hungry arch bureaucrat who wishes to see his people crushed beneath his feet in the pursuit of making him more cash, but a genuine human being who cares about making things better for people- for from this pursuit does he get his job satisfaction. That, if anything, is the true victory of a stable democracy- it gets the right kind of people pursuing power.

Still doesn’t mean they should be let off the hook, though.