Wednesday 5 December 2012

Fptp is good for bad governments

The choice of first past the post means that the state does not seek the most democratic possible mandate... it is satisfied with only partial democracy. But if the intention of the state is to help people then it would make sense to have the fullest possible mandate. (And to have pr.) The existence of the government only makes sense if people consent to it. Government makes no sense if it is not democratic. If the purpose of the government is to help people then it makes sense to have the most democratic system possible... which is pr. If the government is not to help people... but for other reasons... then fptp is effective because it stops people being free of a harmful government. Fptp is good for the government if the government is bad. If government is good then it makes sense to have pr... if government is bad then it makes sense (for the government) to reduce the extent to which people can refuse it. If people want to be free (which we can assume otherwise there is no point in democracy) then pr is the best system for them... only if we (as the government) do not want the people to be able to free themselves from the government is fptp desirable. Fptp is good only for the government and only if the government is bad. If the government is good then pr is not a problem for it (good governments are not offended by pr) it is delivering what the people want (tolerate) even without full democratic accountability. If the government is not good then pr would be a problem for it because people could refuse what it is doing. Fptp enables the government to continue doing things which hurt the population.

No comments:

Post a Comment