By: Rafael

Rafael — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:07:34 +0000

I think the naysayers on the cnvneotion (who are probably Conservatives – a party that also has a cnvneotion and NOT one member one vote, one of the terms of agreement in the merger) have been watching a few too many primaries. 1. No, the leadership selection is not democratic. Why the hell should it be? The Liberal party is a private organization selecting the leader of itself as a private organization. Is CEO selection by Bombardier undemocratic? Yes. Why? Well maybe, just maybe, the most popular guy doesn’t know jack about airplanes.2. Secondly, you guys are just as bad as the PR-hawks with their extremely narrow definition of “democracy”. Canada, strictly speaking, is not one member one vote (and it has MP’s that are not from the ridings they represent). Canada is a confederation, and a rather divided one at that. One member one vote would not only be bad for the party, by favouring leaders that sell where the party already does well, but also bad for the country. Canada is a moderate nation in part because we have not submitted to calls of the jackaninnny mobocracy to our south. Look at the US since 1972, when primaries took hold, and the polarization that has wrought. Democratic primaries picked McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis – all sure losers who were far to the left of the American mainstream. Republican primaries picked Reagan and Dubya (who won, but it is worth noting that McCain polled 25 points ahead of Gore in 2000). In 1976 30% of conservatives voted for Jimmy Carter, 26% of liberals for Ford. In 2008 10% of liberals voted for McCain, 20% of conservatives for Obama (in an election he won by a large margin). Or if you want Canadian examples one member one vote produced Ralph Klein, Ed Stelmach, Mike Harris, Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper – only one moderate (and I am going to get killed here for suggesting he is one). So before you call for new institutions do strain that underutilized muscle upstairs, and consider the consequences of changing leadership selection processes instead of transmitting vapid burps of partisan pablum. Canada has a much narrower membership base for its political parties than the US, so party stalwarts are in control. That is absolutely a good thing because party stalwarts care primarily about winning. If democracy is to reflect the will of the people, it needs politicians that are driven to win elections, not to pursue personal moral crusades. A democracy can’t do that if the leadership selection process picks leaders that are far apart, and rigid in their ideology. We have all been inculcated with the notion that “democracy is good”. Unfortunately few people ask the important question: where and when is democracy good? In government? Was democracy good for the central bank? No, it instituted insidious inflationary motives to the central bank. Is democracy good for the military? Obviously not. Is democracy good for deciding about minority rights? No, you get tyranny of the majority. Secondly, why is democracy good? What is good government, exactly? One interpretation is utility maximization – if you summed the happiness of everybody within the system with a particular outcome (with extreme outcomes limited by the constitution) you get a decent metric. Elections are more likely to produce “least worst” governments than processes like coups, since popular support has something to do with winning elections, and much less to do than one’s ability to stage successful coups (my own efforts in Botswana to date are an exemplary case of this).

Comments on: It Worked Well The Last Time

By: Rafael