Thursday 19 December 2013

If democracy is bad then there should be no elections

If democracy is a true concept then the people should be given the power of the state and the state is answerable to the people. This means that there is no ‘elite’ and everyone has equal access to the power of the state. If democracy is the right approach then is it natural to have proportional representation because this gives each voter equal power (which is an assumption of democracy). If we should not have equal power and there should be an elite of legislators then democracy is wrong and there should be no elections. The first-past-the-post system which can be seen as partial democracy is inconsistent because if democracy is bad (and there should be an authoritarian elite) then there should be no elections at all… not even two-party elections. If democracy is true then only proportional representation makes sense. But if there is a state then it should be owned by the people (democracy is true) because for the state to be valid it must be beneficial to the people and in which case democracy will not be a threat to it. If the state is good then democracy is true (and good) which means that it is consistent to have pr. If unaccountable power is bad then pr is the only valid system and fptp is not valid. First-past-the-post is a rejection of (valid) accountability. There is no reason to subsidise a government elite (as fptp does) which means that there is no reason to have fptp and we should (to be free) have pr. Democracy is freedom unless the alternative is to have no state at all but since the alternative to pr is (generally) fptp and not anarchy then pr is freedom. Only if freedom is bad is fptp preferable to pr.

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