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Why are political parties necessary? Instead of chosing representatives in bulk we should decide democratically about each of these particular questions. Then

Why are political parties necessary? Instead of chosing representatives in bulk we should decide democratically about each of these particular questions. Then, a professional executive power (elected independently, or simply hired) would be legally bound to implement these decisions.

nebolo 5y ago
You can surely see how this could be problematic? Q1: Should we lower taxes? Q2: Should we introduce 5k/month UBI?
- samhw 5y ago
  I still think the kernel of the idea is a really interesting one. Could you make it work, by, say, ranked-choice voting to allow trading off conflicting priorities? (You wouldn't even need to get people to explicitly rank them, come to think of it - you could just prioritise the more popular 'yes' questions.)
- turbinerneiter 5y ago
  This is a popular fantasy, but I don't think it is true. People today are already voting for parties that increase tax on them and decrease it for others. Many people vote for things that are not directly benefiting them or are even bad for them, both consciously and out of ignorance. I vote green/left, although they tax me higher, because I think climate change and social justice is more important than whether or not I have 1k per year more or less.
  - djbebs 5y ago
    Given the amount of people arguing that the rich "don't pay their fair share" when the rich are the only ones actually paying income taxes, I would say your argument has already been disproven.
    - turbinerneiter 5y ago
      If you ignore everything but income tax, sure, but I think that this statement is pretty dishonest. Cue Jeff Bezos getting a tax refund.
    - imtringued 5y ago
      Instead of regressive taxes on work there should be taxes on monopolies like the location value of land.
slightwinder 5y ago
On one side, this is not possible on a practical level, because of the sheer amount of work and knowledge which is necessary to answer particular questions on a meaningful level. On the other side, political parties are a bit what you demand, just on a more abstract level. At least in Germany, we choose them for their specific answers to our questions (or should do it that way), and then hope that they implement them. Though, in reality, politic is complicated and full of compromising and accepting reality. So it's not always possible or good to actually do what the crowd demands. While it's true that most countries should use more democratic power from their citizen, the unsolved problem is how that can be implemented in a good way which would not harm the country long term. See Brexit for a case where this completely backfired. Or the ending of atomic power in Germany, which now backfires because the country can't stop coal mining.
swebs 5y ago
That sounds exactly like the Swiss system. And they seem to be doing quite well by all metrics, so maybe there's something to that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland
- Leherenn 5y ago
  No, OP wants to have people vote on absolutely every decision, whereas the Swiss system is to have elected representatives that deal with the day to day, with the citizens having the power to challenge or propose some specific votes.
notanzaiiswear 5y ago
In my opinion, the job of politicians is to free me from having to deal with politics. That is why they are called "delegates" (in my country at least), because people delegate that job to them. Having to consider every minor political issue would be the opposite of what I want. I agree that maybe some middle ground could be better, though. The parties are too coarse grained, there is no party I agree with on all points. I suppose others feel the same.
jonathanstrange 5y ago
In my opinion, there are many reasons why representative democracy is a better idea. Just because more direct democracy works in Switzerland doesn't mean it would work elsewhere. Switzerland has a very long tradition of it (among men, women weren't allowed to vote for a long time). It's also a very small country. The main reasons: First, direct democracy is very vulnerable to populism. Easy slogans that prey on emotions are prone to win against more realistic attitudes. Second, it's very easy to manipulate direct voting. The way you ask can practically determine the outcome. We know that from opinion polls where seemingly very similar questions can lead to totally different results, based on small details or how many choices there are. There are many ways to prevent this in opinion polls, but these would not work in an adversarial political setting. Third, many decisions require expertise that cannot be put into simple questions, and the general public will not have the expertise. In Germany, many members of parliament are surprisingly well qualified in certain areas like tax and defence politics. These are the "backseat" members voted in by party lists, not by direct election. Giving a direction and letting these experts figure out the details later works better than asking for concrete decisions that cannot be later corrected (because they are, as you say, legally binding). If you let people decide about the same issues directly, they will most often not even be able to distinguish between suggestions that are feasible and those that are imaginary. Again, the populist who provides the easy, though entirely imaginary "solution" can easily gain the upper hand. Direct democracy is also more vulnerable to disinformation than representative democracy. This also happens in party programs, of course, but the representative power structure kind of dampens the negative effects from it. Finally, representatives are ideally able to take on political responsibility (and sometimes indeed do), i.e., resign from their post even if a mistake wasn't their personal fault. No corresponding concept of political responsibility exists for the suggested technocrats. Moreover, once a policy decision is made, putting it into place requires a long series of more or less political decisions, too. You cannot just hand over those smaller political decisions to experts. My 2 cents. Of course, this doesn't preclude discussing how much direct democracy one needs or wants. But I personally completely reject any suggestions for radical direct democracy (which every new radical party invariably makes for a while).

nebolo 5y ago

You can surely see how this could be problematic? Q1: Should we lower taxes? Q2: Should we introduce 5k/month UBI?

samhw 5y ago
I still think the kernel of the idea is a really interesting one. Could you make it work, by, say, ranked-choice voting to allow trading off conflicting priorities? (You wouldn't even need to get people to explicitly rank them, come to think of it - you could just prioritise the more popular 'yes' questions.)
turbinerneiter 5y ago
This is a popular fantasy, but I don't think it is true. People today are already voting for parties that increase tax on them and decrease it for others. Many people vote for things that are not directly benefiting them or are even bad for them, both consciously and out of ignorance. I vote green/left, although they tax me higher, because I think climate change and social justice is more important than whether or not I have 1k per year more or less.
- djbebs 5y ago
  Given the amount of people arguing that the rich "don't pay their fair share" when the rich are the only ones actually paying income taxes, I would say your argument has already been disproven.
  - turbinerneiter 5y ago
    If you ignore everything but income tax, sure, but I think that this statement is pretty dishonest. Cue Jeff Bezos getting a tax refund.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Instead of regressive taxes on work there should be taxes on monopolies like the location value of land.

slightwinder 5y ago

On one side, this is not possible on a practical level, because of the sheer amount of work and knowledge which is necessary to answer particular questions on a meaningful level. On the other side, political parties are a bit what you demand, just on a more abstract level. At least in Germany, we choose them for their specific answers to our questions (or should do it that way), and then hope that they implement them. Though, in reality, politic is complicated and full of compromising and accepting reality. So it's not always possible or good to actually do what the crowd demands. While it's true that most countries should use more democratic power from their citizen, the unsolved problem is how that can be implemented in a good way which would not harm the country long term. See Brexit for a case where this completely backfired. Or the ending of atomic power in Germany, which now backfires because the country can't stop coal mining.

swebs 5y ago

That sounds exactly like the Swiss system. And they seem to be doing quite well by all metrics, so maybe there's something to that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland

Leherenn 5y ago
No, OP wants to have people vote on absolutely every decision, whereas the Swiss system is to have elected representatives that deal with the day to day, with the citizens having the power to challenge or propose some specific votes.

notanzaiiswear 5y ago

In my opinion, the job of politicians is to free me from having to deal with politics. That is why they are called "delegates" (in my country at least), because people delegate that job to them. Having to consider every minor political issue would be the opposite of what I want. I agree that maybe some middle ground could be better, though. The parties are too coarse grained, there is no party I agree with on all points. I suppose others feel the same.

jonathanstrange 5y ago

In my opinion, there are many reasons why representative democracy is a better idea. Just because more direct democracy works in Switzerland doesn't mean it would work elsewhere. Switzerland has a very long tradition of it (among men, women weren't allowed to vote for a long time). It's also a very small country. The main reasons: First, direct democracy is very vulnerable to populism. Easy slogans that prey on emotions are prone to win against more realistic attitudes. Second, it's very easy to manipulate direct voting. The way you ask can practically determine the outcome. We know that from opinion polls where seemingly very similar questions can lead to totally different results, based on small details or how many choices there are. There are many ways to prevent this in opinion polls, but these would not work in an adversarial political setting. Third, many decisions require expertise that cannot be put into simple questions, and the general public will not have the expertise. In Germany, many members of parliament are surprisingly well qualified in certain areas like tax and defence politics. These are the "backseat" members voted in by party lists, not by direct election. Giving a direction and letting these experts figure out the details later works better than asking for concrete decisions that cannot be later corrected (because they are, as you say, legally binding). If you let people decide about the same issues directly, they will most often not even be able to distinguish between suggestions that are feasible and those that are imaginary. Again, the populist who provides the easy, though entirely imaginary "solution" can easily gain the upper hand. Direct democracy is also more vulnerable to disinformation than representative democracy. This also happens in party programs, of course, but the representative power structure kind of dampens the negative effects from it. Finally, representatives are ideally able to take on political responsibility (and sometimes indeed do), i.e., resign from their post even if a mistake wasn't their personal fault. No corresponding concept of political responsibility exists for the suggested technocrats. Moreover, once a policy decision is made, putting it into place requires a long series of more or less political decisions, too. You cannot just hand over those smaller political decisions to experts. My 2 cents. Of course, this doesn't preclude discussing how much direct democracy one needs or wants. But I personally completely reject any suggestions for radical direct democracy (which every new radical party invariably makes for a while).