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In representative democracies, generally the idea is to substitute someone else's judgment for your own. And then if you sufficiently dislike their judgment, vo

In representative democracies, generally the idea is to substitute someone else's judgment for your own. And then if you sufficiently dislike their judgment, vote for someone else next time. So in general, MPs should vote what they believe, and let their constituencies decide whether to return them for it.

Silhouette 10y ago
Sadly, as we've seen in recent years, in practice this system often does not even resemble having representative government or any real accountability to the electorate. Mostly it actually resembles having a field of candidates where many voters don't much like any of them (with an inevitable "Well you should just run for office yourself then!" retort when this is pointed out), who campaign based on a tiny number of issues that will utterly dominate the voting but that are invariably determined by what is prominent in people's mind during the relatively short electoral period, and who may then proceed to do whatever they like, even to the extent of completely reversing their stated pre-election positions on those major issues for no apparent reason, with at most a possibility of subsequently losing their job as much as five years later. In many cases, even that won't happen. However, in almost all cases, issues outside the top 2 or 3 in election season don't count for much at all, even those that may significantly affect millions of people over the term of the next parliament and government. Sometimes, issues that come to dominate politics for several years -- such as the Iraq war, or the negotiations to come over what Brexit will look like -- will be mostly or completely unmentioned at election time. By the time the people have any say over those decisions at the next election, the country may already have been committed whatever the consequences or (un)popularity of the decision with the electorate. If the Brexit referendum campaigns showed us anything, it was that any pretense of elected politicians somehow being better informed or better able to make good decisions than a lot of the voters could make for themselves is laughable. The biggest sources of misinformation during the campaign were almost all senior MPs, and those on both sides repeated half-truth after arbitrary prediction after outright implausibility. The best sources of objective information and considered opinions were mostly non-political experts, and the best arguments I heard for voting one way or the other invariably came from normal people who had used the multi-month campaign window to educate themselves and form their own opinions on the issues.
- Veen 10y ago
  In your final paragraph you seem to be saying that because politicians lie, they're obviously incapable of making better decisions than the populous at large. That's a non-sequitur. Of course politicians lie — they do it consciously and strategically. They do not believe their lies (unless they're also insane). When politicians speak, their aim is to persuade people, not to speak the unvarnished truth. Speaking the plain truth often has results that are directly contrary to their persuasive goals — so they lie, obfuscate, and misdirect. That's been the case for politicians of all stripes for all time and probably always will be. But that doesn't mean the underlying goals aren't sound. Good leaders lie, bad leaders lie. Lying is not in itself proof of incompetence. Brexit is good or bad independent of whether politicians lie about it. If you understand that, you can assess the arguments of politicians, experts, and everyone else in the proper context. The problem is that most people just choose the side that tells the lies that conform to their existing predjuduces, seek facts that confirm those predjuduces, and reject facts that contradict them — which is exactly what politicians are exploiting when they engage in persuasive speech, and why it's better that the populous at large don't make critical decisions. Telling the truth doesn't help.
  - Silhouette 10y ago
    In your final paragraph you seem to be saying that because politicians lie, they're obviously incapable of making better decisions than the populous at large. That's not quite what I said, but the difference probably doesn't matter. The principal argument for having a representative democracy rather than a direct one is that normal people cannot realistically be well enough informed on all major issues to make reasonable judgements in their own interests. No-one has enough time to be an expert on everything while still living a normal life and doing a regular job. Instead, normal people delegate decision-making authority to specialist people who do have the time to become better informed and thus have the potential to make better decisions on behalf of everyone else than the normal people could themselves. Crucially, the normal people are supposed to delegate this power voluntarily, typically by holding elections to find a suitable representative, and this is the ethical basis for some individuals wielding more power than others in society. The point is not for someone to be "in charge" because they are somehow more important or worthy or otherwise better than everyone else. The elected representatives are there to make decisions on behalf of and in the interests of society as a whole, the same way you would consult a specialist lawyer on legal matters or a specialist accountant about your tax affairs. However, I see little evidence that this is what actually happens in practice. If that's because politicians don't really believe or mean the rubbish they say, I have no sympathy. But in reality, having worked with various government representatives and MPs over the years, I see little evidence that most of them are any more competent or better informed in private than an interested but otherwise average member of the public either. Frequently there may be no suitable representative available to elect, which defeats the entire ethical basis for the system, and even with an apparently suitable candidate at election time, the system is hugely vulnerable to principal-agent conflicts of interest. So on really big decisions, including the kind of issue where a referendum gets held after a multi-month period of debate that gives ample opportunity for everyone who cares to examine the issues and form their opinions, I see absolutely no ethical basis for making society as a whole defer to a small number of MPs. If people are smart and well-informed enough to choose good MPs in the first place, they're smart and well-informed enough to make a reasonable decision on a specific issue with several months of notice, and having done so, what basis is there for saying any elected representative -- who presumably campaigned on a range of issues and probably got elected with far less support than carries any referendum -- should be empowered to override the will of the people on a specific decision they have made?

Silhouette 10y ago

Sadly, as we've seen in recent years, in practice this system often does not even resemble having representative government or any real accountability to the electorate. Mostly it actually resembles having a field of candidates where many voters don't much like any of them (with an inevitable "Well you should just run for office yourself then!" retort when this is pointed out), who campaign based on a tiny number of issues that will utterly dominate the voting but that are invariably determined by what is prominent in people's mind during the relatively short electoral period, and who may then proceed to do whatever they like, even to the extent of completely reversing their stated pre-election positions on those major issues for no apparent reason, with at most a possibility of subsequently losing their job as much as five years later. In many cases, even that won't happen. However, in almost all cases, issues outside the top 2 or 3 in election season don't count for much at all, even those that may significantly affect millions of people over the term of the next parliament and government. Sometimes, issues that come to dominate politics for several years -- such as the Iraq war, or the negotiations to come over what Brexit will look like -- will be mostly or completely unmentioned at election time. By the time the people have any say over those decisions at the next election, the country may already have been committed whatever the consequences or (un)popularity of the decision with the electorate. If the Brexit referendum campaigns showed us anything, it was that any pretense of elected politicians somehow being better informed or better able to make good decisions than a lot of the voters could make for themselves is laughable. The biggest sources of misinformation during the campaign were almost all senior MPs, and those on both sides repeated half-truth after arbitrary prediction after outright implausibility. The best sources of objective information and considered opinions were mostly non-political experts, and the best arguments I heard for voting one way or the other invariably came from normal people who had used the multi-month campaign window to educate themselves and form their own opinions on the issues.

Veen 10y ago
In your final paragraph you seem to be saying that because politicians lie, they're obviously incapable of making better decisions than the populous at large. That's a non-sequitur. Of course politicians lie — they do it consciously and strategically. They do not believe their lies (unless they're also insane). When politicians speak, their aim is to persuade people, not to speak the unvarnished truth. Speaking the plain truth often has results that are directly contrary to their persuasive goals — so they lie, obfuscate, and misdirect. That's been the case for politicians of all stripes for all time and probably always will be. But that doesn't mean the underlying goals aren't sound. Good leaders lie, bad leaders lie. Lying is not in itself proof of incompetence. Brexit is good or bad independent of whether politicians lie about it. If you understand that, you can assess the arguments of politicians, experts, and everyone else in the proper context. The problem is that most people just choose the side that tells the lies that conform to their existing predjuduces, seek facts that confirm those predjuduces, and reject facts that contradict them — which is exactly what politicians are exploiting when they engage in persuasive speech, and why it's better that the populous at large don't make critical decisions. Telling the truth doesn't help.
- Silhouette 10y ago
  In your final paragraph you seem to be saying that because politicians lie, they're obviously incapable of making better decisions than the populous at large. That's not quite what I said, but the difference probably doesn't matter. The principal argument for having a representative democracy rather than a direct one is that normal people cannot realistically be well enough informed on all major issues to make reasonable judgements in their own interests. No-one has enough time to be an expert on everything while still living a normal life and doing a regular job. Instead, normal people delegate decision-making authority to specialist people who do have the time to become better informed and thus have the potential to make better decisions on behalf of everyone else than the normal people could themselves. Crucially, the normal people are supposed to delegate this power voluntarily, typically by holding elections to find a suitable representative, and this is the ethical basis for some individuals wielding more power than others in society. The point is not for someone to be "in charge" because they are somehow more important or worthy or otherwise better than everyone else. The elected representatives are there to make decisions on behalf of and in the interests of society as a whole, the same way you would consult a specialist lawyer on legal matters or a specialist accountant about your tax affairs. However, I see little evidence that this is what actually happens in practice. If that's because politicians don't really believe or mean the rubbish they say, I have no sympathy. But in reality, having worked with various government representatives and MPs over the years, I see little evidence that most of them are any more competent or better informed in private than an interested but otherwise average member of the public either. Frequently there may be no suitable representative available to elect, which defeats the entire ethical basis for the system, and even with an apparently suitable candidate at election time, the system is hugely vulnerable to principal-agent conflicts of interest. So on really big decisions, including the kind of issue where a referendum gets held after a multi-month period of debate that gives ample opportunity for everyone who cares to examine the issues and form their opinions, I see absolutely no ethical basis for making society as a whole defer to a small number of MPs. If people are smart and well-informed enough to choose good MPs in the first place, they're smart and well-informed enough to make a reasonable decision on a specific issue with several months of notice, and having done so, what basis is there for saying any elected representative -- who presumably campaigned on a range of issues and probably got elected with far less support than carries any referendum -- should be empowered to override the will of the people on a specific decision they have made?