First past the post serves to exacerbate plutocracy

As has been mentioned before on this blog, there can be a problem when the power of a country is controlled by too few people and one of those problems is that it becomes easy for the rich to buy political power. This is only one of the many problems of a political system which is controlled by too few people, and to remedy these problems we have democracy. But as we have seen, with a first-past-the-post system, we tend to see the emergence of a small number of parties so the advantages of democracy in sharing power are lost. First-past-the-post is fundamentally undemocratic and so this results in a government which has none of the virtues of democracy, principally being accountable to the people.

If we assume that where the left-right dynamic is concerned that the right-wing party is the party of the rich then it falls to the party of the left to protect the voting public. So then if the right do not mind very much that the fptp voting system tends to favour only a small number of parties, the only chance for the rest of the population to protect itself from government-by-the-rich is the party of the left, in the UK this is the Labour party. If the Tories support fptp then it is unlikely that the rich will buy any change in this policy (since it makes the government easier to buy) and only Labour can do anything about it. As a consequence of this, Labour have a responsibility and an obligation to the voting public to offer an alternative to fptp, they have an obligation to offer and demand proportional representation, or a similarly democratic system which is not fptp. If Labour do not do this they are failing in their obligations as a left-wing party.

There is no a priori reason to exclude smaller parties

No one could object that the winner of an election should get some power but we might argue against that person getting all the power. Part of the problem when arguing against the first-past-the-post system is that this term doesn't include a description of the problem, namely that the winner gets all of the power not that the winner gets some of the power. We would not object to the winner getting some power but we might argue for some of the other candidates also getting power. An alternate term for this system sometimes used is winner-takes-all and this gets closer to the nature of the problem. We might propose a third title; first-takes-all, which might get closer to highlighting the problem.

It is against the principles of democracy for smaller, minority candidates and parties to be ignored by the system so then fptp is anti-democratic which makes no sense in a voting system, which we would expect to be democratic. No state has the right to oppose democracy. We might argue that democracy itself is not a right, and there is some truth to this but then for the state to replace democracy with something else is never a right, and the state in doing this is acting criminally. To replace proportional representation with anarchy is not a crime but to replace it with something which is not proportional is a crime.

The problem with first-past-the-post is not that the plurality winner attains power, the problem is that only this person gets power. In a democracy there is no justification in excluding less-popular parties from the legislative process, in fact it could be argued that the reason to have democracy to begin with is so that these minority interests and concerns are respected instead of being ignored as they would otherwise.

First past the post tends to result in big government

In any political system the people and parties in power are able to do what they want subject to the constraint of being democratic. This means that (because they are the government) they are able to dictate the law. The law is defined by the government, which means that they are able to appropriate wealth and property if they wish. Elections enable the people to force the government to release money and power back to the people, so if the voting system is inefficient then this process will happen to a lesser degree and the people will be poorer and the government will be richer.

Part of the problem with the first-past-the-post voting system is that it tends to favour just two political parties which means that, in the end, they just compete against each other and not to serve the people. If more parties can win then each party will feel they are being 'attacked' from different directions, but with a two-party system they must worry only about what the opposition is offering to the people. So if there is less competition for the political parties in an election this is bad for democracy and will result in more poverty for the people as the state appropriates power (relatively) unchecked. To mitigate against this process it is possible to ensure that smaller, minority parties have a better chance and this means altering the system to get something close to proportional representation.

First-past-the-post tends to result in big government whereas proportional representation puts more pressure on the political parties which means a smaller state and more prosperity for the voting public.

Without democracy there can be no property

To have property requires democracy because without the right to vote you have no ability to protect yourself from the government. And since property is a natural right then democracy too is a natural right. Democracy is a natural right because property is a natural right and without democracy there can be no property.

For the government not to be arbitrary requires that it seeks a mandate from the people, via an election and this is democracy. If the state doesn't enable the people to hold it to account then it is not a valid government and it is a tyranny. There is no valid government which doesn't use democracy. But we might ask if all types of democracy and election are the same... if voters cannot cast their votes in a 'naive' fashion then they might be encouraged to vote tactically which is a problem for the voters and is not full democracy. Only full democracy validates the state and we cannot describe first-past-the-post as full democracy. To have full democracy requires proportional representation otherwise the voter is not able to have their intentions reflected in parliament.

As an aside we note that since referendums are by nature proportional (each vote is equal) then direct democracy (in the form of government by referendums) falls into the category of proportionally-elected government.

Government is not valid if it is not democracy and if the government is not valid we can say that it is illegal, since the government must be lawful as it is the solitary body which defines the law. If the government is invalid it is illegal and so then any government which doesn't use pr is illegal and we can say that (government by) fptp is illegal. If the state is not held accountable proportionally then it is illegal and fptp doesn't provide legal constraint on the government. The government is insufficiently constrained if a form of direct democracy or proportional representation is not used.

Democracy is better than first past the post

Part of the reason governments use democracy is that the people will not tolerate them if they do not use democracy so democracy is not popular with the state, necessarily. The people tolerate the presence of the state only if it is at least partially democratic and the reason that democracy is desired by the people is that it is anti-authoritarian. The people want democracy because it is, to a degree, like anarchy in that the government is not the arbitrary source of authority, the people can sometimes reject the government. So the government is forced to be in some sense anarchist because the people will not otherwise tolerate it.

Democracy is like anarchy but the first-past-the-post system is not fully-democratic and as a result it is only partially anarchist, and partially authoritarian. The people have been tricked we might say by accepting fptp given that the people demand anti-authoritarian democracy. The people have been convinced by the government that fptp is like anarchy when it is not. The government too, to a degree, think that fptp is anarchist and so then they deduce that the extent of freedom being given by the government is what the people want. The government, since they think fptp is anarchy, deduce that the people do not want more freedom than is being offered by fptp when in fact this is not the case and fptp is oppressive. The people want as much freedom as democracy allows but fptp is only slightly democratic, not fully-democratic and so then the people are oppressed by the absence of full democracy.

Democracy is consistent with Toryism

Given that democracy enables the people to protect themselves from the state it is inconsistent for a party of the right to reject democracy. Democracy is consistent with freedom and liberty, both concepts associated with the right, or perhaps if not with the right then not with the left.

It makes no sense for conservatives and Tories to reject proportional representation (as they often do) when we consider the reality of democracy as a liberating force, unless the Tories reject freedom. If the right is in favour of freedom then we would expect them to support (the extension of) democracy wherever possible, unless democracy is harmful to freedom. If democracy is not harmful to freedom then real Tories and real conservatives support democracy.

Anarchy is not better than democracy

The nature of reality is that statelessness is impossible because when there is no central government gangs, or brigands will emerge. There can never be true anarchy (in the sense of statelessness) although there can be anti-authoritarianism if democracy allows this.

The least bad form of government is democracy because the alternative is totalitarianism which means the government faces no constraints on its power and unconstrained government power will lead to despotism. So democracy is the least bad form of government and anarchy will lead to brigandism so then if this is a kind of government itself (and anarchy is impossible) then democracy is the least bad state of affairs.

There will always be a state or central authority of some kind, whether legal or illegal and we might as well resign ourselves to the fact that democracy is the least bad state of affairs and that anarchy is impossible.

Democracy is certainly the least bad form of government but it is also the least bad state of affairs given that there can never be genuine anarchy... there will always be some emergent group of outlaws who will take control and this will become a government. Because government is inevitable it is always better to have democracy than any other kind of government and nothing is better than democracy.