First past the post is ineffective

In a previous blogpost I made the comparison between first-past-the-post voting and Sophie's choice whereby we are given a choice between two unpalatable options. Whilst there is some truth to this comparison it is flawed in certain respects. The difference in nature between Sophie's choice and fptp is that with fptp we want to retain neither of the options available. With Sophie's choice she likes both of the options and so to (choose to) reject one of them is painful. With fptp we are forced into retain one of a pair of things we do not like.

We can deduce from this that people do not like either of the fptp parties. (So it would make sense for an anti-statist to be in favour of replacing this system.) If a voter tolerates (or even positively likes) one of the two parties then fptp is not offensive for them. If both of the parties are aggressive then we have a problem for the voter. It is not so bad to have fptp if we are a country in peril from an external threat. In that situation we simply choose the most impressive of the candidates. If the threat is internal and the threat is the government itself then fptp fails because it offers us only two choices both of which (will likely*) share the same problem of internal aggression. If both of the parties on offer are equally aggressive in terms of (for example) taxation then fptp offers no choice to the voter and enables the government to be tyrannical. As far as internal threats are concerned fptp is not very effective at constraining government because both of the two main parties will tend to be similar in terms of taxation. Fptp is ineffective against taxation... and since taxation defines government we can say that fptp is ineffective... against government. Fptp doesn't work because tax is government.

*If one party is not aggressive then fptp is not a problem.