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IMO, most people hold the described political view of being leftie in social and rightie in economic questions. To me the biggest challenge/question is how we c

IMO, most people hold the described political view of being leftie in social and rightie in economic questions. To me the biggest challenge/question is how we can escape the current "local optimum" we are in in which you have to effectively choose between social and economic values (at least in the US). It seems highly unlikely that we will see the emergence of a third party, so I wonder when either the Democrats or Republicans realize the potential of being a true centralist majority party. I tend to think that Democrats are better positioned, but thought that in the 2012 Elections, the Republicans had a great shot with Huntsman.

nickff 13y ago
When you have two sides, there is a 'left' and a 'right'; one can capture the middle, but it will still occupy its side. Unless either party significantly expands (25%-75%), or a large third party captures one far end of the spectrum, neither Democratic or Republican can legitimately claim to occupy the center.
- djur 13y ago
  That isn't a historical certainty. Even leaving the social axis aside and sticking strictly to economics, the American party system only started to fit a left/right model during FDR's presidency. Progressive Republicans started to split from the party in the '20s and eventually found themselves a home in the New Deal coalition. The big change of the post-Carter epoch is that the socially conservative, economically liberal "Reagan Democrats" have almost entirely disappeared off the map, resulting in both parties becoming more separate on social issues. I think it's safe to say that a modern representative democracy (assuming a capitalist, industrialized society) will generally have a right faction and a left faction in national politics. What makes things complicated is when you throw in regionalism, nationalism, militarism, ethnic issues, moral issues, and any other matter of controversy that doesn't always split the same way as left/right economic positions.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> IMO, most people hold the described political view of being leftie in social and rightie in economic questions. I think that, to the extent the economic half of that is true, its only on the very high level, where almost everyone holds what is generally held out as the economically conservative view of "government should expend resources only on those things which are essential government functions". What distinguishes people rather radically is what they see as essential functions of government. > To me the biggest challenge/question is how we can escape the current "local optimum" we are in in which you have to effectively choose between social and economic values (at least in the US). Its not really all that difficult: having an electoral system that produces more proportional representation results in more than two viable parties and more than one main axis of political variation. This is well demonstrated among developed democracies. > so I wonder when either the Democrats or Republicans realize the potential of being a true centralist majority party. There is no advantage to that if you have actual policy preferences that are not centralist. And there's a big disadvantage to it if political views tend to be bimodally distributed rather than normally distributed.
- nchuhoai 13y ago
  As I said, the question is how you escape the "local optimum" given that you are in it. Clearly neither parties have any interest in changing up the current electoral system.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    Most election rules in the US are set by states, many states (including the largest) have a citizen initiative process. Support by incumbent politicians is not necessary for reform that provides proportional representation with candidate-centered elections (e.g., STV rather than something like party-list-proportional) at the state level, which can provide the basis for creating pressure for the necessary federal reforms (e.g., modifying the federal statutory prohibition on multimember congressional districts -- created to stop the practice of states using multimember winner-take-all districts to avoid minority representation -- to allow multimember districts using methods that produce proportional results like STV) to at least allow states the option of providing better methods of electing federal representatives.
sampo 13y ago
I life in Finland, and we have a well working multi-party system. But we have no notable parties in the "Libertarian" corner of the Nolan chart [1]. Every now and then someone tries, but they never manage to secure over 5% of votes, get maybe 1 or 3 representatives in the parliament, but soon disappear again. I believe the scene is similar in a lot of European countries. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart
- nchuhoai 13y ago
  Germany had the Free Democratic Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Democratic_Party_(Germany) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Democratic_Party_(Germany)) which unfortunately just vanished below the 5% (after receiving 17% the previous elections. The problem with libetarian parties I guess could be that they are perceived to be dominated by corporate interests.
- warfangle 13y ago
  I believe the same situation happens in the USA: see Ron Paul. The difference is, yours is a party.. and he's a figurehead.
msrpotus 13y ago
You might think that most people hold that view and I would guess that a lot of the people I socialize with would agree but the majority of Americans don't. That's why people like Jon Huntsman didn't win the Republican primary in 2012, Chris Dodd got almost no votes in 2008, and plenty of other candidates have fallen into the same trap (Chris Kelly, for instance, lost badly in the 2010 California Democratic Primary for Attorney General). If Americans really didn't agree with either party, you'd see them winning but the only real insurgent challenge is coming from the Tea Party on the far right.
- nchuhoai 13y ago
  While I can't say I'm right, I don't neccessarily think that "John Huntsman did not win the 2012 primaries" -> "Most people hold that view" I.e. primaries are very different from elections, you have to have a different support system/funding/incumbent endorsement etc. to succeed in these different situations
- Amadou 13y ago
  That's why people like Jon Huntsman didn't win the Republican primary in 2012, Well part of that is that primaries are mostly voted on by the extremists within the parties. The majority of republicans may well have supported Huntsman, but since most of them don't vote in the primary we never got a chance to find out. When you consider that roughly 40% of eligible voters didn't vote at all in the latest presidential election -- more than either major party were able to muster -- it seems reasonable to say that the electorate isn't pleased with the current situation but isn't empowered enough to do anything about it.
theorique 13y ago
IMO, most people hold the described political view of being leftie in social and rightie in economic questions. If you said most HN readers, or most US-educated engineers from the coasts and/or elite universities, I would agree with you. Most people in general? I have a hard time believing that.
djur 13y ago
In the US, the opposite is true. The average American is somewhat to the right of the median Senator on social issues and somewhat to her left on economic issues. A lot of people like to identify as "fiscal conservatives", but that generally boils down to "the government should spend money on good things and not on bad things".

nickff 13y ago

When you have two sides, there is a 'left' and a 'right'; one can capture the middle, but it will still occupy its side. Unless either party significantly expands (25%-75%), or a large third party captures one far end of the spectrum, neither Democratic or Republican can legitimately claim to occupy the center.

djur 13y ago
That isn't a historical certainty. Even leaving the social axis aside and sticking strictly to economics, the American party system only started to fit a left/right model during FDR's presidency. Progressive Republicans started to split from the party in the '20s and eventually found themselves a home in the New Deal coalition. The big change of the post-Carter epoch is that the socially conservative, economically liberal "Reagan Democrats" have almost entirely disappeared off the map, resulting in both parties becoming more separate on social issues. I think it's safe to say that a modern representative democracy (assuming a capitalist, industrialized society) will generally have a right faction and a left faction in national politics. What makes things complicated is when you throw in regionalism, nationalism, militarism, ethnic issues, moral issues, and any other matter of controversy that doesn't always split the same way as left/right economic positions.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> IMO, most people hold the described political view of being leftie in social and rightie in economic questions. I think that, to the extent the economic half of that is true, its only on the very high level, where almost everyone holds what is generally held out as the economically conservative view of "government should expend resources only on those things which are essential government functions". What distinguishes people rather radically is what they see as essential functions of government. > To me the biggest challenge/question is how we can escape the current "local optimum" we are in in which you have to effectively choose between social and economic values (at least in the US). Its not really all that difficult: having an electoral system that produces more proportional representation results in more than two viable parties and more than one main axis of political variation. This is well demonstrated among developed democracies. > so I wonder when either the Democrats or Republicans realize the potential of being a true centralist majority party. There is no advantage to that if you have actual policy preferences that are not centralist. And there's a big disadvantage to it if political views tend to be bimodally distributed rather than normally distributed.

nchuhoai 13y ago
As I said, the question is how you escape the "local optimum" given that you are in it. Clearly neither parties have any interest in changing up the current electoral system.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  Most election rules in the US are set by states, many states (including the largest) have a citizen initiative process. Support by incumbent politicians is not necessary for reform that provides proportional representation with candidate-centered elections (e.g., STV rather than something like party-list-proportional) at the state level, which can provide the basis for creating pressure for the necessary federal reforms (e.g., modifying the federal statutory prohibition on multimember congressional districts -- created to stop the practice of states using multimember winner-take-all districts to avoid minority representation -- to allow multimember districts using methods that produce proportional results like STV) to at least allow states the option of providing better methods of electing federal representatives.

sampo 13y ago

I life in Finland, and we have a well working multi-party system. But we have no notable parties in the "Libertarian" corner of the Nolan chart [1]. Every now and then someone tries, but they never manage to secure over 5% of votes, get maybe 1 or 3 representatives in the parliament, but soon disappear again. I believe the scene is similar in a lot of European countries. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart

nchuhoai 13y ago
Germany had the Free Democratic Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Democratic_Party_(Germany) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Democratic_Party_(Germany)) which unfortunately just vanished below the 5% (after receiving 17% the previous elections. The problem with libetarian parties I guess could be that they are perceived to be dominated by corporate interests.
warfangle 13y ago
I believe the same situation happens in the USA: see Ron Paul. The difference is, yours is a party.. and he's a figurehead.

msrpotus 13y ago

You might think that most people hold that view and I would guess that a lot of the people I socialize with would agree but the majority of Americans don't. That's why people like Jon Huntsman didn't win the Republican primary in 2012, Chris Dodd got almost no votes in 2008, and plenty of other candidates have fallen into the same trap (Chris Kelly, for instance, lost badly in the 2010 California Democratic Primary for Attorney General). If Americans really didn't agree with either party, you'd see them winning but the only real insurgent challenge is coming from the Tea Party on the far right.

nchuhoai 13y ago
While I can't say I'm right, I don't neccessarily think that "John Huntsman did not win the 2012 primaries" -> "Most people hold that view" I.e. primaries are very different from elections, you have to have a different support system/funding/incumbent endorsement etc. to succeed in these different situations
Amadou 13y ago
That's why people like Jon Huntsman didn't win the Republican primary in 2012, Well part of that is that primaries are mostly voted on by the extremists within the parties. The majority of republicans may well have supported Huntsman, but since most of them don't vote in the primary we never got a chance to find out. When you consider that roughly 40% of eligible voters didn't vote at all in the latest presidential election -- more than either major party were able to muster -- it seems reasonable to say that the electorate isn't pleased with the current situation but isn't empowered enough to do anything about it.

theorique 13y ago

IMO, most people hold the described political view of being leftie in social and rightie in economic questions. If you said most HN readers, or most US-educated engineers from the coasts and/or elite universities, I would agree with you. Most people in general? I have a hard time believing that.

djur 13y ago

In the US, the opposite is true. The average American is somewhat to the right of the median Senator on social issues and somewhat to her left on economic issues. A lot of people like to identify as "fiscal conservatives", but that generally boils down to "the government should spend money on good things and not on bad things".