Monday, 21 January 2013

First past the post is good for the left

It is a matter of observation that first-past-the-post tends to be favourable to the political left. Parties like the Labour party in the UK and the Democrats in America tend to do well under this system. The dynamics of this are easy to understand... the left has less difficulty being loyal and voting for a large party. The right is more individualistic and so they will more easily find objections to voting for their respective parties. The right finds it more difficult to endorse policies which they disagree with not because they are more principled but because their intrinsic philosophy is disinclined to let things go and allow the individual to be oppressed. The left might object to certain policies of their party but they will still support that party since they see the interests of the group being as important as those of the individual. It is for these reasons and perhaps others that even if the party of the left is incompetent and corrupt they still get support in a fptp system. The left do well under fptp. This is a matter of observation. Knowing this it would make sense to support a change to the voting system so that voters are able to vote for whomever they like without their vote being wasted. This means that it would be good to introduce pr. Pr would make it more difficult for the collectivist left to do well which by itself is a good thing.

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