the rules (="It only takes a relative majority to be elected" i.e. election results are 100% valid and legal only if just 10 people vote) are what they are, and are extremely simple to understand.
If this system, however dull it may be, gets replaced by strong men is primarily thanks to those who don't understand, or refuse to accept that reality: for ALL practical purposes, not voting is practically the same thing as voting for the bigger parties, since it increases their percentages. It's math, plain and simple.
People who didn't vote this week in EU contributed to give more seats to the parties that got more votes in each country "won" just as much as those who did cast valid votes for those parties. Again, not a judgment, just a reminder of simple math fact.
Quoting Travaglio, "Se domani becco un astenuto che frigna perché non cambia mai nulla e l’Europa non gli piace, giuro che gli metto le mani addosso."
Signor Bardi, you have raised some very interesting points with this article. Although I can only speak to my sense of the situation here in the United States where I live, perhaps there are many parallels between all of the western nations. Considering the fact that so much time and energy is devoted to continually trying to steer the public away from scrutinizing the actions of the government and toward acceptance of the stripping of people's individual rights and financial autonomy, to me it is evident that the self-proclaimed "elite" have a significant level of concern that the people may rise up. Given my perception, I am planning to not vote in the upcoming (s)election and I will be broadcasting that fact far and wide, in order to encourage others to do the same. Those in positions of power love high voter turnout, because it is a strong indicator that people still believe in the system of government and feel that their votes have meaning. Consider the message that would be sent by record low voter turnout. I choose to fan the flames of their fear and send a strong message that the level of public dissatisfaction is rising precipitously and that the current power structure is in jeopardy. Our elections here in November offer a full slate of unworthy candidates and I cannot, in good conscience, participate in such a charade. I'm curious whether anyone else might have similar thoughts? Grazie for such a thought provoking piece.
There is also the biology analogue, a progressive organization of voting from the community to the state based on local circumscription, let's image that villages elect mayors, mayors elect a regional representative and so on. Something similar is today working in Switzerland with the Cantons that have a strong autonomy and the Federal Assembly exist to represent them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assembly_(Switzerland)) through the Council of States with a strong power (few seats) supplemented by a more "general" representative body called National Council more weak (a lot of seats).
Going from bottom to top is interesting because people are quite attentive on their local level of management and public service, so change is quite possible and rapid if situation degrade, but a lot of resources come from the top (state level) and to control them you must first agree between every step: mayors of a region must agree to elect the representative of their common interests to gain access to a representative in the state council that allocate resources! This kind of organization can be representative and strong if the number of elected representatives in the intermediary bodies is small and unpair, if mayors elect 3 representatives and their council 3 representatives for the state every step probably will have a strong majority (2/1) but work well also if there are broad divisions because every representative have option to look for alliances of common interest between different regions, diffuse problems can't be majority in a single body but diffuse enough and can be a majority in the next level of representation....
The inspiration of this is living body by the way, cells are individual self-sustaining but coordinate in tissue, tissue in organs and organs in individual, every level communicates prevalent only to its next upper level but is depending on the body as whole to survive. Living organism are quite resilient and fast responding because the upper organization level is quite depending on the wellbeing of the lower one: organ depend on the general well-being of tissues and organism as whole is depending on well-being of organs, so the little cell is sure that the organism is looking for his well-being even if it has to sacrifice themselves (apoptosis)
"Voting" is barely democracy. It is three children and their parents, deciding to have ice cream for supper. Voting favours the short-term interests of a plurality, and tramples on minorities and long-term interests. We unerringly vote for those who promise us growth, more jobs, etc., rather than those brave few who will offer managed down-scaling or de-growth.
But I don't think not voting is any sort of solution. Apathy is not the same as "voting against" those in charge.
For this reason, I "waste" my vote on the Green Party. They have not had an opportunity to show how corrupt they would be in power, and it sends a "none of the above" message to the two or three dominant parties.
Much food for thought here. One big problem is that pure democracy just doesn't scale well. Once the population becomes large enough that you cannot easily have direct personal access to your leader, the concept starts to founder.
The system where elected leaders doing what they want after getting elected has a name--"representative democracy." I guess the concept is that we choose our wisest and trust them to make good decisions. Apparently (as you say) that is not working, because the "leadership class" has rigged the game so that all the choices are self-interested individuals that would rather take care of their own interests (and more peripherally, the interests of their class) than look after their constituents.
One way we might restore a little legitimacy is to require a "quorum". If not enough valid ballots relative to the population are submitted, the election is void. As you say, this is unlikely to happen because they fear for their legitimacy. That is also why the pushback is so strong on questioning the integrity of the election process.
I think a large election is just a sampling process. When the votes are very close, which now more and more often seems to be the case (the reason for that could be another discussion), the result should be inconclusive. Every time you count millions of votes, the count will be a little different, so victory larger than a statistical margin of error should be required for a valid result.
A lot of emphasis is placed on surveys of a sample population of voters. I once read an interesting piece of fiction in which they had dispensed with elections and started choosing leaders by sampling instead (it was easier and less costly). Eventually they refined the sampling process so that they only needed to sample ONE voter. At that point, there was a big event every election day where the press would gather at the home of the selected voter, wait until he voted, and then his vote was "counted" and the result announced. Given the dismal functioning of our current system, perhaps this might actually provide us with a better result.
I think it's better to vote for the parties they don't want you to vote for.
the rules (="It only takes a relative majority to be elected" i.e. election results are 100% valid and legal only if just 10 people vote) are what they are, and are extremely simple to understand.
If this system, however dull it may be, gets replaced by strong men is primarily thanks to those who don't understand, or refuse to accept that reality: for ALL practical purposes, not voting is practically the same thing as voting for the bigger parties, since it increases their percentages. It's math, plain and simple.
People who didn't vote this week in EU contributed to give more seats to the parties that got more votes in each country "won" just as much as those who did cast valid votes for those parties. Again, not a judgment, just a reminder of simple math fact.
Quoting Travaglio, "Se domani becco un astenuto che frigna perché non cambia mai nulla e l’Europa non gli piace, giuro che gli metto le mani addosso."
Signor Bardi, you have raised some very interesting points with this article. Although I can only speak to my sense of the situation here in the United States where I live, perhaps there are many parallels between all of the western nations. Considering the fact that so much time and energy is devoted to continually trying to steer the public away from scrutinizing the actions of the government and toward acceptance of the stripping of people's individual rights and financial autonomy, to me it is evident that the self-proclaimed "elite" have a significant level of concern that the people may rise up. Given my perception, I am planning to not vote in the upcoming (s)election and I will be broadcasting that fact far and wide, in order to encourage others to do the same. Those in positions of power love high voter turnout, because it is a strong indicator that people still believe in the system of government and feel that their votes have meaning. Consider the message that would be sent by record low voter turnout. I choose to fan the flames of their fear and send a strong message that the level of public dissatisfaction is rising precipitously and that the current power structure is in jeopardy. Our elections here in November offer a full slate of unworthy candidates and I cannot, in good conscience, participate in such a charade. I'm curious whether anyone else might have similar thoughts? Grazie for such a thought provoking piece.
There is also the biology analogue, a progressive organization of voting from the community to the state based on local circumscription, let's image that villages elect mayors, mayors elect a regional representative and so on. Something similar is today working in Switzerland with the Cantons that have a strong autonomy and the Federal Assembly exist to represent them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assembly_(Switzerland)) through the Council of States with a strong power (few seats) supplemented by a more "general" representative body called National Council more weak (a lot of seats).
Going from bottom to top is interesting because people are quite attentive on their local level of management and public service, so change is quite possible and rapid if situation degrade, but a lot of resources come from the top (state level) and to control them you must first agree between every step: mayors of a region must agree to elect the representative of their common interests to gain access to a representative in the state council that allocate resources! This kind of organization can be representative and strong if the number of elected representatives in the intermediary bodies is small and unpair, if mayors elect 3 representatives and their council 3 representatives for the state every step probably will have a strong majority (2/1) but work well also if there are broad divisions because every representative have option to look for alliances of common interest between different regions, diffuse problems can't be majority in a single body but diffuse enough and can be a majority in the next level of representation....
The inspiration of this is living body by the way, cells are individual self-sustaining but coordinate in tissue, tissue in organs and organs in individual, every level communicates prevalent only to its next upper level but is depending on the body as whole to survive. Living organism are quite resilient and fast responding because the upper organization level is quite depending on the wellbeing of the lower one: organ depend on the general well-being of tissues and organism as whole is depending on well-being of organs, so the little cell is sure that the organism is looking for his well-being even if it has to sacrifice themselves (apoptosis)
"Voting" is barely democracy. It is three children and their parents, deciding to have ice cream for supper. Voting favours the short-term interests of a plurality, and tramples on minorities and long-term interests. We unerringly vote for those who promise us growth, more jobs, etc., rather than those brave few who will offer managed down-scaling or de-growth.
But I don't think not voting is any sort of solution. Apathy is not the same as "voting against" those in charge.
For this reason, I "waste" my vote on the Green Party. They have not had an opportunity to show how corrupt they would be in power, and it sends a "none of the above" message to the two or three dominant parties.
Much food for thought here. One big problem is that pure democracy just doesn't scale well. Once the population becomes large enough that you cannot easily have direct personal access to your leader, the concept starts to founder.
The system where elected leaders doing what they want after getting elected has a name--"representative democracy." I guess the concept is that we choose our wisest and trust them to make good decisions. Apparently (as you say) that is not working, because the "leadership class" has rigged the game so that all the choices are self-interested individuals that would rather take care of their own interests (and more peripherally, the interests of their class) than look after their constituents.
One way we might restore a little legitimacy is to require a "quorum". If not enough valid ballots relative to the population are submitted, the election is void. As you say, this is unlikely to happen because they fear for their legitimacy. That is also why the pushback is so strong on questioning the integrity of the election process.
I think a large election is just a sampling process. When the votes are very close, which now more and more often seems to be the case (the reason for that could be another discussion), the result should be inconclusive. Every time you count millions of votes, the count will be a little different, so victory larger than a statistical margin of error should be required for a valid result.
A lot of emphasis is placed on surveys of a sample population of voters. I once read an interesting piece of fiction in which they had dispensed with elections and started choosing leaders by sampling instead (it was easier and less costly). Eventually they refined the sampling process so that they only needed to sample ONE voter. At that point, there was a big event every election day where the press would gather at the home of the selected voter, wait until he voted, and then his vote was "counted" and the result announced. Given the dismal functioning of our current system, perhaps this might actually provide us with a better result.
Thanks. The illusion of democracy must be upheld. Sad sick joke. Not fun times.