Manifesto for a U.S. Parliament - 2009 Update

In light of recent political developments, I am, to my great surprise, no longer alone in calling for an overhaul of the way decisions are taken in this country. So far in the year 2009, we have seen more starkly than perhaps ever before how far away the U.S. is from being a democratic country.


The healthcare debate in particular has raised a lot of questions regarding the decision-making process. More specifically, the role of the Senate has been put into question. The media makes it seem as if any healthcare reform hinges on a small group of senators, lead by Max Baucus from Montana. They may in fact be right, and considering the fact that this man represents roughly 0.15% of the population (90% of which are white), it is easy to see why such a situation might be called into question even in the U.S..


In an excellent article in the Washington Post called The Gangs of D.C., Alec MacGillis explains the strange power of the Senate and the impact this has on democracy at large. Also, focusing on procedural issues, Eric Etheridge of The New York Times writes about the Senate, filibusters and democracy.


I obviously agree with what these writers are saying about the Senate; it is an unbelievably undemocratic institution even before taking into account the tens of millions in corporate “donations” that these individual senators receive. However, neither of these issues can hold a candle to the fact that voters in the U.S. never have any real choice to begin with, because there is no proportional representation.


Before I continue, let me just reiterate what proportional representation is. First of all, it is the system of choice of the vast majority of advanced countries in the world. If a party receives 15% of the votes, it receives 15% of the seats in the legislative body. This inevitably leads to more parties, and a range of views being represented. If 10% of the population is environmentally conscious, there will be a green party, and if 10% of the population are libertarians, there will be a libertarian party in the legislative body. Neither of these things could ever happen in the U.S. because there is no proportional representation.


Instead, the U.S. system has evolved into nothing short of a corporate state. It is clearer than ever that citizens actually have very little say in what happens in their country. This would never happen in a system with proportional representation.


Here is my suggestion for bringing democracy to the U.S.: The U.S. Parliament


The Inception of a U.S. Parliament


The idea behind a bicameral system (the current system) where one body can overrule the other is, in reality, an idea of permanently limiting political change. The result is that it becomes almost impossible to bring about fundamental political change as society changes, and the fundamental situation that existed at the time of the creation of the bicameral system will, in essence, be preserved indefinitely. At the time of the creation of the American political system, wealthy, white, older men were the only citizens who were allowed to, and were ever supposed to be, involved in the political process. That is largely unchanged to this day, all things considered.


In my suggestion, the two houses of Congress would be merged into one unicameral Parliament, with a fixed number of seats, perhaps 501 (in order to prevent a deadlock). Elections would be held every 4 years. Each state would be awarded a number of seats based on population size, in the same way as the present electoral college awards votes for President based on population size. Each vote in the Parliament would be decided by means of a simple majority, with the exception of a vote of no confidence in the President or the governing party or coalition, which would be decided by a two-thirds majority. Filibustering and other abusive tools would be removed entirely.


The fact that all states have an equal voice in the Senate is frankly absurd. I completely understand the need for regional considerations, but the legal independence of U.S. states more than makes up for potential negative effects of populous states being more influential on a federal level. U.S. voters must realize that there is a time and place for everything. The U.S. Senate is not the place to discuss the construction of a local playground, and The Montana Senate is not the place to discuss the moral implications of abortion.


For Montana with 0.3% of the population, to have equal power to California with 12% of the population, is beyond absurd, and deeply undemocratic.


Proportional Representation


What makes the American political system different from most other political systems (save for some other Anglo-Saxon countries) is the lack of proportional representation. If 49% of voters in a given constituency vote for a certain party, those voters could receive 0% representation in the legislature. This is not an anamoly either; it happens all the time.


In a system with proportional representation, if 49% of voters vote for a certain party, that party receives 49% representation from that constituency in the legislature, no more, no less. How could anyone seriously say that proportional representation is unfair, unjustified, or in any way unsuitable? It directly transcribes what the voters want!


The votes would be counted according to the D’Hondt method, and a party must receive at least 8% of the national vote in order to be represented in Parliament. That rule ensures that extremist parties are not represented in Parliament.

The Bill of Parliament


The concept of a “Bill of Parliament” would be very different from a “Bill of Congress”. The problem with bills in the U.S. today is that they lead to corruption through earmarks and lack of coherence. Earmarks obviously lead to corruption by individual Congressmen, when money is being appropriated to corporate donors by the recipient Congressmen. However, the sprawling nature of American bills of Congress also further weakens the small aspects of democracy that do exists in the U.S..


If a bill about, for instance, construction safety is being held hostage by means of a provision about space exploration in the same bill, it amounts to making a mockery of the political system. For a political system to work for the voters, bills must be philosophically coherent and earmarks as we know them must be abolished. It must be this way in order for the most rational, efficient solution to converge with the will of the people.


The Usage of a Mixed Personal and Party Vote – The Party-List Ballot


One of the common objections to a political system that is based on political parties, as opposed to individual politicians, is that such a system takes away the ability of the voter to vote for a politician that he or she particularly likes. This problem can be remedied by the party-list ballot. In such a system, the voter takes a ballot for the party that he or she likes, and on that ballot, the party has listed the politicians that it considers best suited for the job of being a member of Parliament.


The party lists politicians in order, 1, 2, 3, and so on. Any politician on the list can be ticked off, and the vote would go to that party, and that specific politician who has been ticked off. If the voter chooses not to tick an individual off, the vote goes to the party, and the person who is number 1 on the party’s list. When all the votes are counted, the voters may have defied the choices of the party, and number 1 and 2 on the list, may have been exchanged for number 5 and 12 as the party’s representatives in Parliament.


End the Role of Money in U.S. Politics


The financial aspects of U.S. politics are alien and preposterous to most non-Americans. The idea of both local and national politicians going around the country begging for money from wealthy people, corporations and organizations is simply unbelievable. Most U.S. politicians don’t even try to claim that they have guiding principles for the benefit of their voters, naturally because that would be too transparent in light of billions of dollars in campaign donations. In ancient Rome, votes could be bought openly, and it is frankly not much different in the U.S. today. That U.S. voters continue to accept this is beyond me.


As a result of the government in general receding since the days of Reagan, a power vacuum was created. Slowly but surely, aided by both Republicans and Democrats, the U.S. actually turned into something that is very much like a “corporate state”. In some ways, this state can eventually turn almost as bad as a “failed state”, since it may lead to a form of anarchism (a sort of Ayn Rand-style unregulated economy).


All money contributions to politicians must be made illegal immediately. Period. Political advertising on TV and elsewhere must also be ended, and campaigns should be conducted purely through debates in the media. Each political party would be given a set amount of money from U.S. taxpayers, end of story.


Decrease the Power of the President


A U.S. President is the head of state, the head of government and commander-in-chief. No other modern country has this configuration, and for very good reasons. To give one individual such vast powers is simply dangerous, and as we have seen during the last 8 years, it can have truly disastrous consequences. However the role of the President would be changed, at least one of the three roles would have to be given to someone else in order to safeguard the country against a semi-dictatorship. It should be easier to fire the President through a vote of no-confidence.


It is definitely possible to have a significant President, elected in a separate election, as well as a Parliament with proportional representation. Finland is one country that has this.


Homogenization of Voting Cycles - Avoid The Do-Nothing Government

In the current system, as a result of not holding elections for the House and Senate at the same time, those two houses of Congress tend to go to different parties, as the ruling party usually gets punished by voters after a while in the majority. As a result of this, every piece of legislation that politicians try to introduce will be either shot down, watered down or changed beyond recognition. Result: a do-nothing government. In a unicameral system, like the one I'm suggesting, this could not happen, but there could nevertheless be harmful effects of voting cycles via the interaction between local and federal elections.

In a system with a U.S. Parliament, there would obviously still be local elections, with proportional representation of course. Those elections must be held at the same time as the Parliamentary election in order to avoid the situation with the do-nothing government, where local elections are unfairly impacted by national politics, for instance. The goal should be to have as vibrant a political discussion as possible, with the merits of different policies at center stage at all times.

Increase Voter Participation by Practical Means


The United States has, by far, the lowest voter participation out of the OECD countries


This is, of course, a testament to a non-working system. Most U.S. voters obviously feel that there is no point in voting, and many of them are consistently and strongly prevented from voting, legally and illegally. Voter suppression is so rampant that it is worthy of a banana republic. Here are some numbers of voter turnout in OECD countries between the years 1945 and 2005:


The Netherlands: 84.8% (proportional representation)


Sweden: 83.3% (proportional representation)


Israel: 80.0% (proportional representation)


Germany: 80.0% (proportional representation)


Great Britain: 73.0% (fundamentally the same voting system as the U.S.)


Canada: 66.9% (fundamentally the same voting system as the U.S.)


United States (midterm): 40.6%, (presidential) 55.1%


As you can see, the three countries with the lowest numbers all have one thing in common: they all have the winner-takes-all voting system in which very large parts of the population are shut out of the political process completely.


There are a number of practical measures that can be taken to make it easier for people to vote, such as:


- conduct all voting on Sundays


- automatically register every U.S. citizen as a voter on the person’s 18th birthday


- create a national ID card which is sent to every U.S. citizen when the person turns 18


- allow mail-in ballots in every election


- End all electronic voting and create completely uncomplicated, nationally standardized paper ballots

What the People Want - Crisis Management and Proportional Representation

One of the central premises of this blog is that the will of the people, the voters, is not at all realized in actual political policies in countries, such as the United States, that don’t have proportional representation.


One of the clearest examples of this in history can currently be seen in the differences in the economic crisis management between countries that have proportional representation and those who don’t.


The voters in The United States and Great Britain (which both have the winner-takes-all voting system) are outraged and disgusted by the taxpayer give aways to the financial oligarchy, whereas voters in countries with proportional representation, such as Germany and Sweden, are generally pleased with the political handling of the crisis, even though they suffer greatly in this crisis too.


The winner-takes-all voting system excludes all those voters, often more than 50% of the voters, who do not subscribe to the specific beliefs of the two only parties that exist in this country. By contrast, a system with proportional representation counts every single vote, and if a party gets 10% of the votes, it gets 10% of the seats, hence incorporating the will of all the voters, as opposed to a small number of them.


In addition to this, the United States allows huge political donations to individual politicians in a scheme that can only be described as a “policy purchasing program”. Money for policy; it’s as simple as that.


The Handling of the Economic Crisis in The United States and Great Britain


Since the current economic crisis began last year, the handling of it has been strikingly similar in The United States and Great Britain. It has been based on one central premise alone:


Protect the current financial power structure, and the individual players within it, at any cost to the taxpayers and no matter what the long-terms consequences to the economy are.


It really is as simple as that, because there is virtually no evidence to the contrary. With bailouts, loans, guarantees to AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America, Bear Sterns and many more, the U.S. taxpayers are on the line for over $10 Trillion at this point!


Enormous bailouts of Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays Bank and many more in Great Britain will eventually cost British taxpayers Trillions of dollars too. All the while banks and other financial companies in both countries are continuing to pay enormous bonuses while successfully opposing financial regulation.


The American and British economies are at this point essentially unregulated. The people in both countries are outraged, and I personally don’t know anyone, nor have I heard anyone outside the corrupt media elite, voice support for the bailout and support of the financial oligarchy.


I don’t have any exact numbers for this, but if I, as a resident of Manhattan working in the financial industry, don’t know anyone who thinks that this is a good idea, I can only imagine what people around the country think about it.


Protesters in Britain have repeatedly smashed the windows of banks, and bank employees have had to hire body guards, so I don’t think the outrage is any smaller there.


The Handling of the Economic Crisis in Germany and Sweden


Although there have been bank bailouts recently in Germany and Sweden, it has been done on a much smaller scale. Banks in both Germany and Sweden had been over extending themselves in lending to Eastern Europe while that part of the continent was trying to re-join Europe after communism.


Both the German and Swedish governments have repeatedly stated that it would be immoral to throw away large amounts of taxpayer money, both for the immediate purposes of taxpayers and the long-term consequences to the economy.


The internal economies in Germany and Sweden were already sufficiently regulated, so in no way are the banks there causing as much of a domestic problem. One could instead look at an industry that is vital to the U.S., Germany and Sweden: the auto industry.


The U.S. has simply given away billions of dollars to companies that are clearly not competitive. Germany’s car companies are very competitive, but the car market in Germany is extremely slow nevertheless. Germany was creative in dealing with this, and gave taxpayers a few thousand dollar to scrap their old car and buy a new one. Sweden will most likely follow this idea.


Sweden refused to bail out SAAB, noting that the company had only been profitable for a handful of years during its 50-year existence. How would Sweden be able to turn around a car company when the biggest automaker in the world could not? It must be noted that the Swedish government in general is not opposed to state-owned companies.


The Swedish government owns many companies that it runs for profit, and created and maintained one of the most successful brands in the world: Absolut Vodka. Who said the government couldn’t run a business?


The Swedish and German governments have, throughout the economic crisis always had the taxpayers’ interests and the future of the country as their first and only priorities.


Small bailouts have occurred, and stimulus in the form of aid to local governments that have run short on cash because of job losses have been paid.


The public outrage that has occurred in Germany and Sweden has largely concerned bonuses, but the big difference is that those bonuses were paid by the companies themselves, not the taxpayers, as in the case of the U.S. and Great Britain.


The policy response to the economic crisis from the winner-takes-all countries has been disastrous, and I personally disagree with almost 100% of what the response has consisted of. The policy is based on the premise that the financial oligarchy must be preserved, taxpayers and country be damned.


The policy response to the economic crisis from the proportional representation countries has been deliberate, responsible, thoughtful with a long-term approach. I agree almost 100% with what has been done in those countries, even though I would not vote for any of the parties currently in power in either country.


This fact describes clearly that the will of the people is not translated into policy in the United States and Great Britain. These two countries are undemocratic and both need vast constitutional overhaul.






Obviously, I advise that the winner-takes-all voting system should be destroyed.

Proportional Representation - The Iraq Example

George W. Bush claims to have created a new democracy in the Middle East: Iraq. One of the most interesting things about this is how it was done, and how the government and the voting system was set up. Surely, if a democratic “liberator” country topples a regime in the name of democracy, it would want to create a new democracy in the country as a mirror image of itself. In the case of Iraq, however, this was not done.


Proportional Representation has become the system of choice for virtually all developed countries in the world, except in the Anglo-Saxon countries. When the United States toppled the Iraqi regime and installed a new political system, the American model of government was not chosen. Instead, Proportional Representation was chosen.


All that Proportional Representation is, is a system that counts every vote and awards seats in Congress based on how many votes a certain party gets. Can it get any simpler than that? If you get 40% of the vote, you get 40% of the seats. End of story. In The United States today, however, if you get 40% of the vote, you may get 0% of the seats. The American voting system inevitably leads to the following outcomes:


1. Only two parties can ever take part in the political process, even if those two parties are not even close to enjoying support from a majority of the population.


2. Politics is not driven by issues, such as whether or not to provide national healthcare. Instead, the personality of politicians and the amount of money a politician has are without question the two most important factors.


3. Co-operation between the parties (a.k.a. bipartisanship) occurs, so that neither of the parties can ever be challenged by a new party. This can also be described as a political cartel. For a new party to come onto the political stage, one of the old ones would have to disappear.


If the United States government had suggested the American voting system for Iraq (also known as the winner-takes-all voting system), there would have been a nationwide outrage and eventually, very likely, a civil war. The reason for this is that, inevitably, only two parties would have made it into the Iraqi parliament, one of which would have ruled everything.

Clearly, there would have been one Shia Nationalist Party and one Sunni Nationalist Party. The Shia Nationalist Party would have won the majority and ruled completely. The Kurds would not have been represented at all, nor would any other minority, like the Christians.


In a deeply divided and diverse country like Iraq, it would have been disastrous to have only one ethnic group rule the whole country, which is what would have happened under the winner-takes-all voting system. The other groups would most likely have been repressed to a point where rebellions started occurring. The Kurds would have rebelled against the usage of oil money, the Sunni would have rebelled against religious intolerance, and so on.


By giving the Iraqi people Proportional Representation, The United States ensured that every Iraqi was given a voice, regardless of ethnicity, region or income. This made the likelihood of civil war infinitely smaller, and gave the new country a chance to work its problems out. It remains to be seen whether that is possible, however, but a fair voting system is obviously of the utmost importance.


The United States is also a deeply divided country because of geography, ethnicity and old divisions going back to the civil war. There is an incredibly strong anti-government sentiment in this country that is unmatched in the rest of the world, leading to a situation that many foreigners would describe as semi-anarchistic. The American people do not want to work together, and they do not share the same goals.


I believe that the reason for this is that the American people cannot be represented proportionally because of the winner-takes-all voting system, as Iraqis can. As a result of this, doing nothing seems like a better option than having one group rule over all the others. In the United States, an unfair voting system has gradually led to a governmental paralysis.


For all those groups of voters whose interests are not shared by the political elite, there is no way to gain a political voice, because their party would have to be big enough to eradicate either The Republicans or The Democrats from the political scene, which is obviously easier said than done.


The only rational thing these people can do is to be critical of government action in general, which is what they have done for over 200 years now…



The main reason that I write this blog is that I consider the American (as well as the Canadian and British) system of government to be undemocratic. Even George W. Bush knows that the American voting system is undemocratic, otherwise he would have seen to it that Iraq was given this system too.


The biggest problem, however, is that the American people are not aware of what consequences the current voting system has, or that there is something called Proportional Representation, and that is why I’m writing all this.






Share your thoughts in the comment section

Oligocracy

OK, Oligocracy isn’t really a word, but I hope it will become one as time goes by. Oligarchy (which is a real word) means the rule by the few, or a sustained political elite. Oligarchy tends to develop over time, as certain segments of the population, such as powerful families, accumulate more wealth and influence and become oligarchs. My version of the word, Oligocracy, is meant to describe a system that is intentionally set up from the beginning to be the rule of the few.


It comes without saying that a rule of the few, as opposed to the rule of the many, is inherently less democratic, and, indeed, undemocratic. The phrase, “the rule of the many” is not primarily meant to refer to a government that has, for instance, a lot of politicians, or a lot of public referenda. Instead, it is meant to refer to the inclusion of as many of the citizens as possible in the shaping and outcome of the political process. An oligocracy is meant to do the opposite.


There are several reasons why the founder or founders of a political system would want to limit the influence of citizens in the country when drafting a constitution. The United States constitution is by far the oldest constitution that is still in use in the world. Many other industrialized countries have had to write new constitutions because of wars, or chosen to significantly re-write them as they have become seen as obsolete. The older and less amended a constitution is, the more likely it is that values that are unfamiliar to us today will appear in it. Values tend to go through an evolution as societies evolve. For instance, we would be very unlikely to see a new constitution in an industrialized country that would prohibit black people from voting.


When The United States Constitution was drafted and consequently adopted, a few important values that are unfamiliar, and even reprehensible, to us today, were commonplace and seen as normal. A few of these values, which were expressed in law in The Constitution, were:


- the belief that black people should not be allowed to vote


- the belief that women should not be allowed to vote


- the belief that people who do not own property should not be allowed to vote


These beliefs express clearly, more than anything else, the belief that only a small segment of the population should be allowed to have an influence in the political system. Although all three of the abovementioned rules have been gotten rid of, the spirit of them most certainly remains in the constitution, because that constitution is so old and relatively unchanged. The U.S. Constitution, as well as other federal and state-level law, retains a very large number of provisions that are meant to limit the influence of currently disenfranchised citizens and political actors. The United States is a clear example of an Oligocracy.


In the current U.S. system, there are mainly three factors that perpetuate the U.S. oligocracy:


1. Winner-takes-all voting system. In this system, the party that gets the most votes in a given district gets all the seats in that district. The U.S. and British systems are examples of this, and this system invariably creates a two-party system. Only two parties have actual influence on national politics, and all other parties are, in practice, excluded. The alternative, which is used in a majority of advanced democracies, is proportional representation. Proportional representation awards seats in proportion to how many votes a party received. Hence: 25% of votes = 25% of seats.


2. Bipartisanship. In a two-party system, the two parties will benefit from working together, so that no other party can be successful in elections. This creates a type of political cartel, much like an economic cartel, where supposedly competing companies agree to set high prices for the customer instead of competing with each other. The voter will inevitably be short-changed in a system of bipartisanship.


3. Limiting voting rights and voting access. The U.S. still legally restricts voters who have been convicted of crimes, and to some extent, university students who study in a state other than their home state. In The U.S., voting is a much more complex affair than anywhere else, where complicated registration and voting procedures are clear and intentional deterrents to voting. Illegal voter suppression is also more common than anywhere else.


An oligocratic system is an undemocratic system that excludes large segments of the population. It comes as no surprise that The United States has, by far, the lowest voter participation in the entire industrialized world.

Without Ideology, There Is Only Anarchy

The word “ideology” has a somewhat offensive ring to most Americans. You often hear politicians on the campaign trail saying things like “Americans are not interested in ideology”, or “we will work in a non-ideological, bi-partisan manner”. All that ideology really is, is a coherent structure of ideas that are meant to appeal to voters. So how can that in itself be offensive?


When the United States was founded at the end of the 18th century, it was founded on the idea of independence from the British king. That a subordinate country broke free from a colonial power was certainly nothing new, but the great novelty in the American case was how this was done, and how the new country moved forward. If a political commentator in 1788 would have guessed what the future of America was to be, using history as a guide, he or she would most likely have guessed that the heroes of the revolution would battle it out with each other for supremacy in order to ascend the “American throne”. In other words, we could very well have had a “King George Washington”.


The founding fathers chose instead to give away power to a segment of the general population, using a model that resembles that which was used in ancient Greece, where property-owning men were made a part of the political process. Indeed, many argue that the parallels between contemporary American and ancient Greek democracy are many still today, especially with respect to Socratic ideals of the good citizen and politician who is financially and morally responsible for his household, community, as well as being a prudent policy maker in the legislature. Another important factor and parallel was the belief that politics should be primarily a local affair. This early model of democracy is hence based on the leadership of a (hopefully) benevolent elite.


When The United States was founded, all European countries were still dictatorships. This fact created a struggle for something better in Europe, which eventually created the ideologies we know today. Without question, the two most important ideologies to come out of this process are liberalism and socialism. Conservatism is not an ideology, as much as it is an absence of ideology, because it only seeks to conserve, and not to renew. Today, in the entire western world, with the exception of the United States, the political landscape in each country is basically made up of two blocks of somewhat opposing ideologies:


Right: Classic liberals along with conservatives, and


Left: Socialists along with social liberals.


The United States hence defies what seems to be the “natural order” of a Western political landscape, in that it has two blocks on the right (Republicans and Democrats), and none on the left.


Due to the fact that America was never a dictatorship governed from within, the struggle for political change with respect to economic differences between different segments of the population never quite took off. America was only a dictatorship vis-à-vis its colonial power, and not vis-à-vis a domestic dictator or domestic elite. Also, The United States was founded before a real crystallization of the ideologies occurred, so little inspiration could have come from them. At the time of its founding, The United States had the most modern form of government on earth, but because of the inherent, incredibly conservative nature of the constitution, that was eventually about to change in a big way.


Being the first one to embark on something has its pros and its cons. The early adoption must be followed by constant updating, otherwise you run the risk of lagging behind quickly. The United States was among the very first to adopt standards for electricity and TV, never to change them after that. Hence, the low Volt grid (110V as opposed to 230V in most other countries) is less efficient, and the American TV standard now has a lower resolution than that of most other countries. The United States never updated its constitution to include things like proportional representation, a unicameral legislature, a separation of the head of government from the head of state; things that most citizens of other Western countries now enjoy.


The American political system can now only be described as an 18th century dinosaur in an increasingly complex world. The recent financial crisis is the perfect example of how the individual nature of American politics is unable to deal with complex problems. Because the system is based on the perceived good personal qualities of the “benevolent elite” (meaning the individually elected Congressmen), American politics has become an awkward expression of the individual gut feelings of the elected individuals. When the financial crisis came, a motley crew of individuals who had no idea whatsoever about what they were doing or what they were dealing with, signed away trillions of dollars of taxpayer money in the biggest misguided give-away in history. The inability to act swiftly, responsibly, intelligently and successfully is, in a nutshell, the biggest problem with the American political system. In order to act swiftly, responsibly, intelligently and successfully, you don’t need a gut, you need an idea.


Negative statements about ideology from American politicians come as no surprise. Systems and institutions have a way of perpetuating themselves in their own self-interest. American politicians have been able to convince voters for centuries that ideology is bad, because that is all that voters are ever exposed to. If ideology were introduced in a big way in American politics, it would not only make it more difficult for wealthy individuals to get elected on vague policies; politicians would be able to be held accountable on a moral and philosophical level. That would in turn, by definition, take away large elements of self-interest from politicians and give that self-interest to voters. Naturally, an American politician would not want to do this.


As a direct result of this, the vagueness and lack of ability to foresee the actions of an elected politician creates a highly watered-down political process in a do-nothing government. Politicians won’t want to do anything because that goes against their self-interest. In that situation, politics inevitably moves towards a type of anarchy. Small government, less regulation, less social security, less concerted action in all things political; these are all anarchic tendencies.


Without ideology, there is only anarchy

Manifest for a U.S. Parliament Part 2 - Every Vote Counts

A political system is only as good as the voters make it. If voters don’t take responsibility for the workings of their system they will inevitably be taken advantage of by the politicians that they vote for. People who choose to go in to politics are always highly driven individuals, and unless the political system is set up in such a way that the interests of the voters is the foremost concern at all times, politicians will make the system work primarily for themselves. A system that allows large-scale monetary contributions to individual politicians, such as the American system, is hence a recipe for disaster. Likewise, a system that only allows two parties, will foster collaboration between those two parties to the effect that no other party can be allowed in to the political system, and very large parts of the population will be shut out of politics in terms of their wants and needs.

I will now continue this second part of the manifest with prescriptions for how the American political system can be made better and truly work on behalf of its voters, whatever the needs and convictions of those voters are.

Proportional Representation

What makes the American political system different from most other political systems (save for some other Anglo-Saxon countries) is the lack of proportional representation. If 49% of voters in a given constituency vote for a certain party, those voters could receive 0% representation in the legislature. This is not an anamoly either; it happens all the time. In a system with proportional representation, if 49% of voters vote for a certain party, that party receives 49% representation from that constituency in the legislature, no more, no less. How could anyone seriously say that proportional representation is unfair, unjustified, or in any way unsuitable? It directly transcribes what the voters want!

The votes would be counted according to the D’Hondt method (more on that some other time), and a party must receive at least 8% of the national vote in order to be represented in Parliament. That rule ensures that extremist parties are not represented in Parliament.

The Inception of a U.S. Parliament

The two houses of Congress would be merged into one unicameral Parliament, with a fixed number of seats, perhaps 501. Elections would be held every 4 years. Each state would be awarded a number of seats based on population size, in the same way as the present electoral college awards votes for President based on population size. Each vote in the Parliament would be decided by means of a simple majority, with the exception of a vote of no confidence in the President or the governing party or coalition, which would be decided by a two-thirds majority. Filibustering would be removed as a tool entirely.

The Usage of a Mixed Personal and Party Vote – The Party-List Ballot

One of the common objections to a political system that is based on political parties, as opposed to individual politicians, is that such a system takes away the ability of the voter to vote for a politician that he or she particularly likes. This problem can be remedied by the party-list ballot. In such a system, the voter takes a ballot for the party that he or she likes, and on that ballot, the party has listed the politicians that it considers best suited for the job of being a member of Parliament. The party lists politicians in order, 1, 2, 3, and so on. Any politician on the list can be ticked off, and the vote would go to that party, and that specific politician who has been ticked off. If the voter chooses not to tick an individual off, the vote goes to the party, and the person who is number 1 on the party’s list. When all the votes are counted, the voters may have defied the choices of the party, and number 1 and 2 on the list, may have been exchanged for number 5 and 12 as the party’s representatives in Parliament.

End the Role of Money in U.S. Politics

As I wrote in my last post, the ability of individuals, corporations and organizations to make large contributions directly to individual politicians is making a mockery of the political process. All such contributions must be made illegal immediately. Period. Political advertising on TV and elsewhere must also be ended, and campaigns should be conducted purely through debates in the media. Each political party would be given a set amount of money from U.S. taxpayers, end of story.

Decrease the Power of the President

There’s really only one appropriate word to describe someone who is head of state, head of government and commander-in-chief: King. No other modern country has this configuration, and for very good reasons. To give one man such vast powers is simply dangerous, and as we have seen during the last 8 years, it can have truly disastrous consequences. However the role of the President would be changed, at least one of the three roles would have to be given to someone else in order to safeguard the country against a semi-dictatorship.

Increase Voter Participation by Practical Means

The main reasons behind the fact that voter turnout is the lowest in the U.S. among all industrialized countries is obviously that there is no point for most people to vote because there is no proportional representation. But there is also large-scale voter-suppression, fraud and other tactics that keep voters away. This must obviously be dealt with mercilessly. In addition, there is a number of practical measures that can be taken to make it easier for people to vote, such as:

- conduct all voting on Sundays

- automatically register every U.S. citizen as a voter on the person’s 18^th birthday

- create a national ID card which is sent to every U.S. citizen when the person turns 18

- allow mail-in ballots in every election

- End all electronic voting and create completely uncomplicated, nationally standardized paper ballots

If you agree with me, spread the word. If you disagree with me, leave a comment. (You can also leave a comment if you agree with me)

Manifest for a U.S. ParliamentPart 1 - J’accuse!

Over the last few months the United States has gone through a historic election and has entered the first stages of a depression, so the underlying focus of this blog, which is fair and proportional representation of the American people in the political process, has been largely ignored. More than anything, however, institutional and constitutional issues affect economic factors, in that these factors highly affect the successful implementation of an economic and/or legal agenda. The crisis we are seeing right now is, I believe, a direct result of a non-working political system.


In two parts, I will present a manifest for constitutional change, beginning with an indictment of the current system, and continuing with a blueprint for a new one.


Below I will attempt to identify the main problems with the American political system:


* The U.S. Congress is in a state of permanent deadlock due to the bicameral system


The idea of a bicameral system where one body can overrule the other is, in reality, an idea of permanently limiting political change. The result is that it becomes almost impossible to bring about fundamental political change as society changes, and the fundamental situation that existed at the time of the creation of the bicameral system will, in essence, be preserved indefinitely. At the time of the creation of the American political system, wealthy older men were the only citizens who were allowed to, and were ever supposed to be, involved in the political process. That is largely unchanged to this day, all things considered. Even when one party controls both the house and senate, the process of making law is still very much impaired because of the almost complete lack of party unity and the democratically ridiculous practice of filibustering.


* The differentiated voting cycles between the House and Senate creates divided governments


As a result of not holding elections for the House and Senate at the same time, those two houses of Congress tend to go to different parties, as the ruling party usually gets punished by voters after a while in the majority. As a result of this, every piece of legislation that politicians try to introduce will be either shot down, watered down or changed beyond recognition. Result: a do-nothing government.


* The winner-takes-all voting system produces a two-party system


It is an undeniable fact that awarding 100% of the seats in a legislative body to a party that receives the most votes in a given constituency produces a system where only two parties are ever politically viable. Theoretically, a party could very well receive 25% of the votes and still get 100% of the seats, and this has happened before in Anglo-Saxon countries. That anyone can even try to make the case that this is fair to the voters is laughable. In many cases, a majority of the voters in the U.S. cast votes that are wasted, as a majority was in the 2000 Presidential election. Also, how can it be argued that two specific parties that take turns ruling in perpetuity, is in any way a good idea in an ever changing world? And why should there only be two parties? Do the Democrats and Republicans all stem from an eternal breed of geniuses?


* The vast powers of the President make all other politicians all but irrelevant


The United States is the only industrialized country where one person is the head of government and head of state at the same time. In addition, the President is the commander-in-chief and has veto power in Congress. In other words, the President has the ability to control almost every level of American society. As we have seen during these last 8 years, it is definitely not difficult for a U.S. President to usurp vast powers. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this country is vulnerable to dictatorship, just like Russia.


* Small states have too much power in the Senate


The fact that all states have an equal voice in the Senate is frankly absurd. If acres of land could think or feel pain, then this system might make sense, but in our world it does not. I completely understand the need for regional considerations, but the legal independence of U.S. states more than makes up for potential negative effects of populous states being more influential on a federal level. U.S. voters must realize that there is a time and place for everything. The U.S. Senate is not the place to discuss the construction of a local playground, and The Montana Senate is not the place to discuss the moral implications of abortion.


* In the United States, large-scale corruption and bribery is completely legal


The financial aspects of U.S. politics are alien and preposterous to most non-Americans. The idea of both local and national politicians going around the country begging for money from wealthy people, corporations and organizations is simply unbelievable. Most U.S. politicians don’t even try to claim that they have guiding principles for the benefit of their voters, naturally because that would be too transparent in light of billions of dollars in campaign donations. In ancient Rome, votes could be bought openly, and it is frankly not much different in the U.S. today. That U.S. voters continue to accept this is beyond me.


* The United States has, by far, the lowest voter participation out of the OECD countries


This is, of course, a testament to a non-working system. Most U.S. voters obviously feel that there is no point in voting, and many of them are consistently and strongly prevented from voting, legally and illegally. Voter suppression is so rampant that it is worthy of a banana republic. Here are some numbers of voter turnout in OECD countries between the years 1945 and 2005:


The Netherlands: 84.8%


Sweden: 83.3%


Israel: 80.0%


Germany: 80.0%


Great Britain: 73.0% (fundamentally the same voting system as the U.S.)


Canada: 66.9% (fundamentally the same voting system as the U.S.)


United States (midterm): 40.6%, (presidential) 55.1%


As you can see, the three countries with the lowest numbers all have one thing in common: they all have the winner-takes-all voting system in which very large parts of the population are shut out of the political process completely.


It’s not a working system, and it needs to be changed.




Do you disagree with me? Please leave comments, and feel free to use generalizations and accusations every bit as sweeping as mine!

Reader Comment: Proportional Representation

The following text is a commentary from a reader, Steven, of the underlying focus of this blog (although so much has happened lately that the subject has been mercilessly brushed aside temporarily). Steven is critical of my suggestion of a U.S. Parliament, and this is why:

Steven writes:

"The focus of this blog is political issues in the United States. I advocate a merger of the U.S. house and senate into one U.S. Parliament with proportional representation, where 10% of the vote for a given party would give that party 10% of the seats in the Parliament."

Over two hundred and fifty years ago, Montesquieu observed in The Spirit of the Laws that a nation's political structure should take into account such factors as its demographics and geography. I think this is precisely what you have ignored.

The creation of a Parliament of the United States would mean the elimination of the states.
You have a better chance of being elected to the Senate as a socialist in Vermont than you would as a Democrat in Texas.

The fact that Wyoming (population less than 500,000) and California (population nearly 34,000,000) have equal voices in the Senate might be incomprehensible to most Europeans but makes perfect sense to Americans.

The Amish people in Lancaster, Pennsylvania have little in common with the Afro-American culture of Harlem, New York. The Cubans of Miami Beach have little in common with Mormons of Utah. Gay constituents in Greenwich Village, New York have little in common with the Hasidic Jewish Community of Williamsburg, New York. Coal miners in West Virginia have little in common with ship builders in Connecticut. The needs of our nation's farmers (access to credit, depreciation of their equipment on income taxes, assistance in times of famine, price supports on milk, etc) have little in common with the needs of the rest of our population.

Also important are the constituent services our representatives perform for us. Someone having a problem with a passport or an emergency visa, seeking information on obtaining a patent, or struggling against a ruling by a social security office has an advocate in the form of his Congressman or Senator. For years, conservative Republican Senator Al D'Amato from liberal Democratic New York kept getting reelected primarily because his rapid and effective assistance in such matters was legendary. People who disagreed with him on everything voted for him because he got their lost passport replaced in a matter of days or had some bureaucratic ruling from some social security office reversed. Government is more than passing laws and spending money. In adopting a national parliament, this free and vital service would be lost.

In our current system, members of these communities have the opportunity to elect men and women to represent their values and meet their needs. However, in a national legislature composed of members elected by proportional voting, any focus on the agenda or unique needs of these constituencies would last about as long as a cheeseburger in a backyard bar-b-que.
Your proposed legislature would make representatives responsible to their political party rather than to any state or town.

You forget that state delegations made up of members of both parties often vote together on issues that affect their states.

Democrats and Republicans representing Michigan collaborate to protect the automotive industry.

Democrats and Republicans representing Nevada collaborate to try to stop the use of federal lands in their state from being used to store nuclear waste.

Democrats and Republicans representing New Jersey collaborate to enact laws preventing ocean dumping, a procedure largely practiced by neighboring New York.

Democrats and Republicans representing Louisiana collaborate to gain federal funding for reconstructing New Orleans.

And the beat goes on.

This country is called the United States of America, not the United People of America. That is why the American flag has fifty stars. That is why on election night you saw the contest between McCain and Obama decided by state electoral votes rather than individual popular votes. And that is why a national legislature modeled on proportional representation based on the strength of the various political parties will not take root here.