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Sunday 10 October 2010

Democracy, Onepartyism and Electoral Reform

We live in an elective oligarchy, not a democracy.

An oligarchy is a political oligopoly, or cartel, if you prefer.

A cartel is a conspiracy of providers who have mutually agreed to carve up a market between themselves and will do all in their power to keep out any competition.

Democracy in the old-fashioned sense was Athenian Democracy and this took the form of citizens being allowed to vote on policies and laws as individuals.

A modern form of this would be government by referenda, which of course we do not have. In fact, the British are the worst-treated nation of all the EU nations since most of them have already had a referendum on Maastricht and the Lisbon Treaty, while the British were denied a referendum on either.

Clearly, for direct democracy to operate, the exercise of voting for parties would become redundant.

Clearly, too, the form of democracy that operated in Ancient Athens and Republican Rome was without party, because the citizens of Rome would vote for or against laws. (Shifting factions are of course unavoidable.)

In a modern state however, a party would be necessary, if only to count votes, field candidates, propose policies etc.

But to even propose this raises the spectre of a one-party state and all the horrors that our knowledge of Hitler, Stalin and Mao will bring to mind.

The only flourishing and functioning one-party state is of course China. The continually revised constitution of the Chinese Communist Party reveals that they have got the theory right at any rate, and there are articles in it that are there to safeguard the rights of individual members against the leader and his cronies.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/25/content_6944738_1.htm Article 4

China is, ironically and paradoxically, the only country that is practising direct democracy, albeit with a very narrow franchise.

Perhaps the reason why it is now doing so well is because the system now practised in China is the most rational of all known forms of government. All the best people join it, the rewards are enticing, and there will be no problems with succession under their finely balanced constitution. The leader is elected by the Politburo (consisting of 9 members). The Politburo is in turn elected by the Politburo Standing Committee (consisting of 27 members) and also elects members to the Politburo Standing Committee.

If their current leader falls under a bus, there will be at least 9 people waiting in the wings with the experience and the talent to replace him, unlike our sad sorry system we like to pretend is a democracy.


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