Why do we need political parties?

The question of why we need political parties has long irked me. I believe the nature of a political party is conceptually at odds with democracy and should be abolished in favour of representatives voting either with their conscience or what they reasonably believe to be the will or in the best interests of their constituents.

Why? What's wrong with political parties you might ask? You only need look as far as the definition of democracy.

n 1: the political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives 2: a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them 3: the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group

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Political parties create disproportionate representation when politicians are forced to vote along party lines irrespective of how a politician's constituents may feel about the bill. This creates a representative democracy where the elected representatives doesn't necesssarily represent their electorate. Essentially, you can have the will of the minority forced upon the majority.

For an example of this in action, you only need look as far as today's news in which Ex President of the ALP observed that the formation of Labor's policy on Uranium mining will most likely be decided next April on factional lines rather than necessarily a majority.

On the other side of the house, look to John Hyde Page's recently published book, "The Education of a Young Liberal" where the author describes first hand examples of people being bullied and threatened to maintain certain points of view.

There are many, many more examples of the failure of democracy as a result of the party-based system we employ, but these examples have both come to light in the past fortnight.

So what do you think? Is my point valid? Is it the best compromise? Or am I just a raving, frustrated lefty?

Why can't we just put everything to a referendum?!

You are partly right.
Parties are a "club" that serves itself better than the public often, but we can't do everything by referendum.
Many of the public are too ill informed to make good decisions.
The existance of Big Brother is evidence enough without going into it in detail.

As a Lefty you are probably upset about Beasley's stance to Uranium and nucleur power, but in Europe the leftys are pushing nucleur power to help save the world from global warming and pollution. If we were to replace our worst brown coal power station (Hazelwood, the worst polluting power station in the world) with nucleur energy we would actully make a big difference. So called socialist countries like Norway and France are big proponents.

But if you left it to the public you would get shrill non-thinking lefties spouting propaganda and Simpson fans making an uneducated choice. That's why a referendum system won't work.

(Hey, I'm sounding like Ducat! jog on)

I'd consider myself a lefty, but I think looking at nuclear power is long overdue. The example I used was illustrative and not indicative of my beliefs.

but if you left it to the public you would get shrill non-thinking lefties spouting propaganda and Simpson fans making an uneducated choice.

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At the moment we get shrill non-thinking lefties and every other political stereotype sprouting propaganda, except we only get it at election time. The very same Simpsons fans also vote.

If we were to live in an "ideal" democratic system where everything was put to referendum, we'd still have to put up with all that but atleast the decision would be representative of the people.

This is all beside the point. Obviously governance by referendum is uneconomic (could you imagine the money spent by lobby groups!) and hence not a viable solution. One alternative that comes to mind is a system of direct representation where elected officials are mandated to vote on behalf of their constituents and where laws are passed by majority in a blind vote to prevent factions forming.

To be honest it's just something that has always frustrated me. It doesn't matter WHO you vote for, it only matters which party. In the end, people compromise based on which of the two major parties is likely to best represent them (either that or they vote for the incumbant because its better than the alternative, right Mr(s) Xenophone?).

Yes, the famous choice, you have to vote for one of us.

I am really scared of pressure groups and organisations like Macbank who influence government sometimes to the detriment of the people.

I would like the party stronghold to be less strong also. The good thing about the senate is that they are in for two terms and so can speak out without much fear of a party backlash.

I agree DoctorJ, there must be a better way. As you suggest, a method where the local region has more influence than the party. I don't know. :dunno:

Knobby22 said:

If we were to replace our worst brown coal power station (Hazelwood, the worst polluting power station in the world) with nucleur energy we would actully make a big difference. So called socialist countries like Norway and France are big proponents.

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Off the topic of the thread but relevant to the above.

If we just ran Hazelwood (and every other power station) on a strict engineering basis (as it was pre-competitive market) then that alone would cut more from Australia's greenhouse gas emissions than one or even two nuclear reactors and would do so with no real costs. Actually it would reduce costs (but not necessarily prices).

Worth noting that the total greenhouse gas emissions from electrictiy generation in Australia's National Electricity Market (Qld, NSW/ACT, Vic, Tas and SA) is somewhat higher than that which would result if we had 100% efficiently run black coal-fired generation despite having very significant amounts of hydro (virtually zero emissions) and gas-fired generation in the system. This results substantially from the practice of unnecessarily varying the output of certain power stations (at their owner's discretion) to force up the price and also from witholding supply (also to force up the price).

I won't name those responsible but suffice to say they are not based in Qld, Tas or SA and Hazelwood is nowhere near the top of the list of offenders in recent times (nor is Yallourn). Given that the coal-fired plants in Queensland (government owned) are amongst the best managed and most efficient in the world, we ought to be considering the domestic nuclear power debate in it's proper context - a hidden cost of competition.

(If anyone wants to discuss this then I suggest starting a separate thread to keep this one to the original topic).

Interesting point, Smurf.

doctorj said:

If we were to live in an "ideal" democratic system where everything was put to referendum, we'd still have to put up with all that but atleast the decision would be representative of the people.

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It still wouldn't be representative of all people - (again) only the majority.

Many believe they know what's best for 'the people'. I'm sure if you did a survey, the majority would say that the best kind of a society is "a democracy of course!". But is it really? I think people confuse the terms democracy and liberty. They are not analogous.

I've actually got a book on order at my Uni library - Democracy: The God that Failed by Hans Hermann Hoppe, which I've been looking forward to reading. There are quite a few of his articles available to read online. He's an Austrian school economist and libertarian, so if you are unfamiliar with anarcho capitalism etc, I'm sure you will find his articles very thought provoking.

Here's another good little piece off the Ludwig von Mises Institute website, Democracy is Coercive. There's an absolute plethora of material on the LvMI site. I'd definitely recommend checking it out.