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The strange case of Britain’s demise

economist.com

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Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#351

Post by version_five »

nicoburns wrote: post #340
version_five wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I subscribe to the idea that the most important aspect of democracy is to be able to kick out the incumbents (and less important is that every opinion gets direct representation). I think for all the challenges in the US, it does this quite well.

The problem you have in the US is that you only have one alternative choice, so if neither choice is good, then you have no recourse

There are two components though. One is the ability to choose the party, the other is the pressure on a party to adjust so that it appeals to enough voters to elect it. If a party doesn't need to adjust to get some votes, as in proportional representation, then we (potentially) end up with coalitions that live or die based on narrow issues, which is what the original post I replied to alluded to. On the other hand, if you have two parties that fight over the votes, you come closer to having parties that optimize for broad appeal.

There are lots of problems with democracy (just fewer than the other potential systems as has famously been said). Imo a two party first past the post system can actually help regularize the will of the people by forcing parties to align with actually electable platforms and not dig in on single issues. Lots more to say about that, I just want to counter the usual rhetoric about how proportional representation or similar systems are somehow automatically better

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#352

Post by WhackyIdeas »

In my view, it started with Cambridge Analytica and the knock on effects of targeted political propaganda to stir up intense emotions in people on social media. Then Brexit and the knock on effect from Trumpism in the USA, which we were subjected to in the news everyday. Essentially, the people caused all of this. As more random people in the UK started to get into political thinking for possibly the first time in their lives (from Brexit), they thought they had a clue. But they didn’t, all they were was datapoints to mess around with by experts in their field. Facebook gave data to experts (Cambridge Analytica) who created essentially a tool of war for mass psychological warfare. That’s my 2 pence and I am saying this from a perspective of a person who knew social media was terrible for society as far back as Myspace.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#353

Post by tailspin2019 »

rjh29 wrote: post #266
tailspin2019 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I voted against it, but to properly have an informed enough opinion on it really required a good understanding of our economy and how it interacted with that of the EUs. I believe Brexit was such a complex issue that most normal voters could not be expected to be able to be informed enough to actually weigh up the decision by any useful means other than relying on superficial emotional decision making or…

I wish all political discussion was as nuanced and intelligent as your comment.

How kind!

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#354

Post by throwaway13152 »

nine_zeros wrote: post #144

As an outsider, but generally appreciative of British culture's influence on me, I was (and continue to be) flabbergasted with Britain's inward outlook. For the vast majority of British history, Brits were only wealthy when they traded outside. The trade took various forms such as East India company, trading outposts, industrial trade outside the island, colonization, financial capitalization etc. Britain ruled the s…

"For the vast majority of British history, Brits were only wealthy when they traded outside. The trade took various forms such as East India company,"

"stopping skilled/semi-skilled immigration. This is completely and astonishingly backwards."

britain was an emigration nation for almost 500 years, immigration had nothing to do with Britain acquiring wealth, you have this part backwards.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#355

Post by l3w3 »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #150
jtrip wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (if people from outside the UK can believe it, some local councils are introducing rules which mean you will be fined if you exit your neighbourhood in a car to go to another part of the same city). Can you give an article or city name for this?

Oxford. Another town announced they were looking at this. I would also point out, this is one measure in a long string of similar measures: LEZs, that wasn't enough so now they are doing ULEZs, banning cars from some cities (York)...near me the council put a traffic calming measure near a school, this was so effective that the school was unable to receive food deliveries...all this stuff came in during Covid (my loca…

I live in York, cars have not been banned. Some central streets have been pedestrianised for a long time. Inner roads around the city center can be extremely busy.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#356

Post by throwaway2037 »

namdnay wrote: post #162
mmarq wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Housing - separate from just planning, there are specific rules within the housing market that cause distortions above the planning system failing to produce enough supply. For example, rent controls in Scotland...that caused a 40% drop in rental supply in two weeks, this is economic mismanagement on a grand scale. Umpteenth reminder that England is the only place on planet Earth where people earning a top 10% sa…

I assume you’re talking about London? I doubt that 70k£ is top 10% in London

Google search found "Median annual earnings for full-time employees in the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2022 (in GBP), by percentile" here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/416102/average-annual-gr...

    Data on the average annual gross salary percentiles in the United Kingdom in 2022 showed that the bottom ten percent of full-time workers earned an average of 19,403 British pounds a year, with the top ten percent of workers earning around 62,583 pounds a year.
Agree: No way this is Greater London.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#357

Post by scatters »

tragomaskhalos wrote: post #255
mjfl wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I don't think that's how it works? I think parliament works proportionally? See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_the_United_Kingd... It is not the case that the conservative party got all the seats.

Imagine there were 100 constituencies, and in every one party A secured 51% of the vote and party B got 49%. Under our current system, party A would have all 100 seats, and party B would have no representation at all; whereas under PR, A and B would (simpisticly speaking)split seats 51-49.

Worse, imagine that in 51 constituencies A gets 51% of the vote, and in 49 it gets 0% of the vote. This gives A a majority in parliament even though voters as a whole prefer B nearly 3-to-1.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#358

Post by Tycho »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #320
mjfl wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't a parliamentary system effectively proportional representation? It's just prime minister that's first past the post, but from a proportional vote in parliament? Labour is not going to save Britain. They are just going to redistribute money that is more and more and more "not there" anymore. The EU is not going to save Britain, they are having a crisis too. Nothing will save Britain, it is doomed for the next co…

OP is using the term loosely, but the issue is with FPTP a candidate can win with one vote over 1/n percent of the vote. So if there are 10 candidates the winner need only 10% of the vote plus 1 vote to win. That's an impoverished version of democracy.

Scaling effects matter. In practice there are many parties but most of the votes go to two of them.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#359

Post by mathnmusic »

kibwen wrote: post #347
gernb wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said > In a real democracy the big challenge should be how to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority But isn't that exactly what's happening? The minority (red) won against the majority (blue).

The grandparent is simplifying. The goal of a democracy is to respect the will of the majority while respecting the fundamental rights of the minority. If you're not doing the first step, respecting the will of the majority, then your democracy has already failed. A tyranny of the minority is strictly worse than a tyranny of the majority.

> A tyranny of the minority is strictly worse than a tyranny of the majority.

Not if the minority opinion is right. The ground truth matters.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#360

Post by Tycho »

scatters wrote: post #357
tragomaskhalos wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine there were 100 constituencies, and in every one party A secured 51% of the vote and party B got 49%. Under our current system, party A would have all 100 seats, and party B would have no representation at all; whereas under PR, A and B would (simpisticly speaking)split seats 51-49.

Worse, imagine that in 51 constituencies A gets 51% of the vote, and in 49 it gets 0% of the vote. This gives A a majority in parliament even though voters as a whole prefer B nearly 3-to-1.

Why do people criticise FPTP using these hypothetical scenarios that do not resemble the actual outcomes.
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