Wednesday 20 March 2013

Only dictatorship is worse than fptp

If we assume that without democracy there will be no government then perhaps there is a reason to reject pr. But if the only alternative to pr is to have first-past-the-post then pr is preferable and good. If government without democracy is impossible or not something that we have to fear (since it will not happen) then we have no reason to advocate democracy... because without democracy there would be no government which is good... so it is only as a consequence of the fear of tyranny that we would advocate democracy. If tyranny is impossible there is no need for democracy. Since tyranny is possible we have democracy and the more choice we have the better. It is because we have choice in how we are governed that democracy reduces the size of the state and so to have more democracy further reduces the size of the state and is good. It is because to have a big government is bad that democracy (and pr) is good. It is only good to have fptp (compared to pr) if we want big government. If the alternative to fptp is pr (and not anarchy) then fptp is bad. Fptp is good only compared with no democracy at all. Fptp is better only than tyranny... it is not better than pr. The only thing worse than fptp is unaccountable government... everything else (both pr and anarchy) are preferable. Only tyranny (government without democracy) is worse than fptp.

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