Archive for the 'Deep stuff' Category

Threshold

Published
by
Steve Pierson
on November 12, 2008
in Deep stuff
. 117 Comments

[I'll just preface this post by saying I have no love for Winston Peters' politics and I'm happy to see New Zealand First out of Parliament but, then, I would also be happy to see National out of Parliament and, surely, we shouldn't base an electoral system on particular outcomes for particular parties, rather, on morality and justice]

According to the preliminary count, 88,000 New Zealanders voted for New Zealand First this election (the number will be nearly 100,000 once specials are added). There will be no MPs representing those voters’ choice of preferred party in this Parliament. In contrast, 78,000 New Zealanders voted for Act but, despie being fewer in number than NZF supporters, their voice will be represented in this Parliament because National voters split their vote in Epsom to ensure Act won the seat. It is largely due to these two factors, the wasting of NZF votes and the inclusion of the smaller number of Act votes, that we have a National/Act government rather than a Labour-led government.

There seems to me no logical reason why Act voters should get their voice heard but NZF voters shouldn’t. It’s one of these ‘quirks’ of MMP. But it is an unnecessary quirk arising from the fact that we have a 5% threshold. So, why do we have a threshold and why is it 5%?

MMP was introduced in post-War Germany, replacing the pre-Nazi fixed list proportional system. It was felt that a threshold of 4% would prevent extremist parties gaining a toehold in the Bundestag. A sensible, if probably ineffective, precaution in a country that had just been wrecked by the Nazis’ actions. But hardly a reason for us to have it. The Royal Commission that recommended we adopt MMP also said we should adopt the 4% threshold as part and parcel of it. For reasons I’ve never seen satisfactorily explained, that was raised to 5% when MMP was enacted.

Since MMP was introduced, nearly 400,000 votes have been wasted on parties that won enough support to justify at least one seat on a proportional basis and two incumbent parties (NZF and the Alliance) have been knocked out of Parliament in that manner. In 1999, the Greens would have been out of Parliament and 103,000 voters would have lost their representaiton if just 3,300 fewer votes had been received by the Greens. All because of the threshold.

Now, people will say that if we didn’t have a threshold then the Bill and Ben Party would have won a seat last election. To which I respond, not really and so what? If there was no threshold fewer people would make protest votes on joke parties. And if they did and the Bill and Ben Party won a seat, who are you and I to say that is wrong? The day we start deciding that some people’s voice shouldn’t be represented because they’ve made a dumb choice is a dangerous day indeed. If we’re going to start deciding some parties are not ‘worthy’ enough to be in Parliament irrespective of the support they receive, we would have to get rid of United Future for starters.

If there were no threshold, it would not be a free-for-all (not that there’s any reason why a free-for-all would be bad). A party would still need to get 20,000-odd votes to get in and most people would still vote for larger parties. As with the introduction of MMP, removing the threshold would make Parliament more diverse and representive of the opinions of voters - surely good things to have in a democracy.

It is a complete injustice that 88,000 votes doesn’t get a voice just because there weren’t 16,000 more people who agreed with them while 78,000 people do get a voice just because 16,000 voters who support a different party tactically supported one of their party’s candidates.

MMP is a great system, the best I’ve yet studied. There is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. But to make MMP fairer we should remove the threshold.

The fundamental question

Published
by
Steve Pierson
on November 7, 2008
in Deep stuff, election 2008 and workers' rights
. 44 Comments

The fundamental question of politics is how the wealth of society should be divided among the members of society. We live in a capitalist society. That means it is the people who own the capital (businesses, factories, farms) who own the things that are made and get to choose how to divide the wealth between themselves and the people who work in their businesses and factories, and on the farms. Governments can change this balance by giving workers more rights or fewer rights, rising or lowering the minimum wage, taking wealth off those who get most and using it to provide public service free for everyone.

These graphs show the economy, the annual amount of wealth produced by our society. It is divided into the amount that is paid to workers in wages and salaries (in red) and the part kept by the owners of capital (in blue). Notice how the portion going to workers fell when National from when National started governing in 1991 to 2000 when Labour came to power and how the workers’ share has grown since then.

Fundamentally, that’s the choice between Labour and National.

National was founded by and continues to be run and backed by the owners of capital - businessmen and farmers. In their natural self-interest, they have a political party that makes sure they get a bigger share of the wealth by not placing restrictions on the use of capital for the individual gain of the owners, lowering taxes and cutting public services, and weakening the power of workers to demand a larger share.

Labour was established by and continues to be run and backed by people from the workers’ rights movement. In their natural self-interest, they have a political party that makes sure they get a bigger share of the wealth by restricting capital so that it acts in the broader interest of society, redistribution of wealth to poorer workers through taxation and public services, and strengthening the power of workers to demand a larger share.

When National says it wants ‘change’ it is actually saying it wants to restore a time when the balance was more in favour of the owners of capital. When Labour says it offers ’stability’ it is actually saying it offers to continue a gradual evolution of the balance in favour of those who do the work.

The size of the circle grows over the years as the economy grows. One fundamental of National-type parties is to promise to make the economy grow faster to make up for the fact that those who do the work, most people, get a smaller share of the economy when they govern. However, Labour also wants to grow the economy as the easiest way to increase workers’ wealth without facing resistance from the capitalist class. When you compare their records, it has been Labour that has grown the economy faster while also growing the share that goes to workers.

The Greens argue (and Labour agrees to an extent) that, while giving a fairer share to workers is important, we must also make sure that in growing our wealth we don’t destroy the foundations of that wealth, our environment. If we abuse our natural resources, the amount of wealth we have will start to decrease. Moreover, they argue we shouldn’t be so obsessed with creating more ’stuff’ in the first place.

The Maori Party argues that, while giving a fairer share to workers is important, the capitalist/worker divide is not he only one in society. They argue that as well as not getting a fair share as workers, Maori don’t get a fair share because they are Maori and deserve a fairer share.

ACT argues the market is the only fair way. The Progressives basically agree with Labour. United Future does what’s best for Peter Dunne’s pay packet.

Musical interlude, einher mit die Philosophie

Published
by
Steve Pierson
on October 11, 2008
in Deep stuff
. 10 Comments

A utopia, an ideal socio-politico-legal system that we can work towards if never reach, should lie at the heart of ones political philosophy. Ones support for ideas and policies should be based on whether they further progress towards ones utopia.

One of the earliest expoundings of a utopia was in Plato’s The Republic. Plato recounts Socrates examining the requirements and conditions for an ideal state in which the Men of Gold, also called Philosopher-Kings or Guards, rule with their perfect logic and lack of self-interest (funny how philosophers come up with systems where philosophers rule), Men of Silver, or Auxiliaries, conditioned (through eugenics and collectivism) to be totally loyal to the State defend the system, and the Men of Bronze (that’s the rest of us) do all the stuff and are well-behaved.

This system was meant to prevent the bad outcomes the Greek philosophers saw in the monarchies, oligarchies, and democracies of Ancient Greece, effectively creating a benevolent dictatorship of really great chaps who would do the best for all. Of course, 2,500 years of experience since then has shown that even the best dictatorships do not stay benevolent for long. We can all see that this ideal state is a blueprint for what would quickly become a Police State. As Socrates is asked in The Republic, ‘who will guard the Guards themselves?’

Who indeed. The philosophers spend the bulk of the work debating whether the Guards can guard themselves (which is pretty much what modern democracies attempt do through the seperation of powers), whether there can be naturally perfectly just, incorruptible people to be Guards, whether they have incorruptibility conditioned into them (by being told ‘noble lies’), or whether this is all a silly idea.

Anyway, this was all just an excuse to post Minuit: The Guards themselves. It’s the coolest song with a reference to political philosophy, ever. At least, as far as I’m aware. Have a listen, why don’t ya?

Fighting the moral fight

Published
by
Steve Pierson
on October 5, 2008
in Deep stuff and election 2008
. 34 Comments

There are two core strains to left-wing thought. Both of them can be seen as rooted in the evolution of the scientific method during the 18th and 19th centuries, although the essential ideas, of course, existed long before. The first is liberalism. Liberalism holds that we must always keep an element of self-doubt and criticism at the heart of our philosophy; that no-one has a monopoly on truth, so we must allow everyone into the social decision-making process, regardless of class, race, gender, sexuality, or other trait. The second is socialism. Socialism holds that there is an essential sameness, an essential equality amongst all people. There is no scientific reason and, therefore, no moral reason why any class, race, gender, sexuality or other group should be advantaged by the social order or subjected by another.

Now, on the Left we tend to hold both strains inside our philosophies, and they are largely compatible. The problem arises that liberalism taken to its extreme loses the ability to criticise or moralise. We’re all aware of moral relativism, where a blind adherence to liberal ideals prevents us from criticising behaviour in other cultures that would be viewed as abhorrent in our own culture or from a socialist perspective. You hear people defending brutal dictatorships by claiming this is just the way other cultures operate. But liberalism can also hog-tie us into not fighting illiberal forces within our own society. After all, ‘they might be right’ is something we can never discount. The problem is this prevents us from putting any moral force behind our beliefs. It is a constraint that socialism does not face – it is free to argue any system that subjugates one group to another is immoral and can be attacked as such.

It is letting our liberalism make us weak kneed that has prevented us from making a moral argument for left-wing government. Instead, ridiculously, the moral high ground is associated with the Right. The Right fights for the established order against the forces of liberalism and socialism – they fight against free universal health care, education, and basic income, against full employment and a whole suite of other policies. The result of them having power is that power and resources stay concentrated with the ruling (capitalist) elite and the rest living less healthy, more crime-ridden, poorer, shorter lives than need be the case. Yet overly liberal sentiments have prevented us from saying that the Right’s policies and methods are immoral. By failing to do so, we come to rule only by default; only when the people are utterly disgusted by the Right’s policies and manage to find a political alternative*. All the surveys and studies show that people overwhelming favour more socialist policies, the redistribution of wealth to moderate the unjust, unequal outcomes inherent in capitalism. Yet, we do not say that the Right stands against those value; we do not call the Right’s principles immoral. The Right should never win because they don’t stand for what most people want; as long as we continue to fail to show the immorality of their policies, they will continue to win.

*[in the 50s and 60s, the left-wing vote was split between Labour, Social Democrats, and Values, in 1978 and 1981, left-wing Labour won more votes than National but lost under FPP, in 1990, voters deserted right-wing Labour for any alternative – NewLabour and National, in 1993 and 1996, the Left won more votes but failed to establish Parliamentary majorities]

Back to basics

Published
by
Steve Pierson
on September 22, 2008
in Deep stuff
. 55 Comments

I’ve had some interesting conversations with people recently that have me thinking we need to get back to some political basics to build up to the practical policy questions of today, otherwise many of us are talking past each other. Here are three founding principles, which I hope to build from in an occasional series of posts. Hopefully, we can get consensus that these are correct:

People vary. Some people are shorter than others, some are luckier than most, some are smarter, some dumber. With most qualities, there are a few people at the extremes and most distributed around a norm. That goes for propensity to violence, honesty, initiative, just about anything. That fact that people vary means they will also act in varying ways in the same situation.

All humans have a right to live a life worth living. There may be exceptional circumstances when that is over-ridden by a greater good (eg during war) but, generally, that right applies regardless of wealth, class, gender, sexuality, ethnic group, or other characteristic. It is an acknowledgment of a universal humanity. To reject this to to argue that the powerful ought to do what they will with others; that, strength and will should triumph.

Capitalism is an economic system in which most capital is controlled by a small portion of individuals and most people sell their labour to live. Capital owners own the means to produce goods and services and those goods and services once produced. As all people need to consume good and services to live but most do not own capital in a capitalist system, most people must sell their labour to capitalists in return for a right to a share of goods and services (represented by money).