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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

#361

Post by kibwen »

mathnmusic wrote: post #359
kibwen wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Okay, how do you decide which opinion is right? Perhaps we'll... vote on it? You do see the problem here, yes?

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#362

Post by nine_zeros »

throwaway13152 wrote: post #354
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.

What you are missing is that Brits have only two choices.

1. Bring industry in and let skilled immigrants come in so as to create a modern high skilled economy.

2. Emigrate out en mass to other countries that have successfully created modern high skilled economies.

Most countries would die to have number 1 in their own shores.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#363

Post by blix »

chimeracoder wrote: post #316
VK538FY wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your point. 'First past the post' may not be ideal for your country. For other countries, it is appreciated despite its inconveniences. Example: Québec. We inherited 'first past the post' from England. The results are obvious: small parties with significant numbers of voters in many ridings don't end up in parliament. But Québec is a rural province with only one city worthy of the name, Montréal, almost…

> But Québec is a rural province with only one city worthy of the name, Montréal, almost half the population of the province. That city has a demography very different to the rest of the province. In a proportional system, the will of the big city would simply sweep away the rural regions that don't have the same weight. People have learnt to accept 'first past the post' and any change would upset the balance that ex…

> "some people's votes are weighted more than others", which is an inherently undemocratic principle.

Has there ever been, in the history of human civilization, any self-styled democracy that did not weigh the votes of some people more the votes of others? Whether by sex, gender, race, wealth, education, criminal status, party membership, age, or status as an elected official, I'm pretty sure every single democratic state has continuously subscribed to some non-uniform distribution of vote weights.

With modern technology, it maybe possible to create a truly direct and equal system where newborns have the ability to ratify trade deals, but this might not be desirable.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#364

Post by Silhouette »

gghhzzgghhzz wrote: post #314
Silhouette wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that argument is where the money comes from. If you look at government tax take relative to GDP we aren't paying in much less tax than at any other time in most of our living memories. If anything it is the other way around. We'd all like public services that do everything for everyone but few of us would be willing to pay what that would actually cost and many of us literally couldn't afford it. Mea…

The NHS has been in continuous reform. Thatcher / Blair / Brown / Lansley / Hunt. Most of these reforms have included injecting private sector and internal markets into the system. You may agree or disagree with these reforms, but it's difficult to argue that they don't incur overhead. Outsourced contracts need administration, legal frameworks; private parties take profit or else they wouldn't exist. I'd argue it is…

I expect you're right about all of this. The famous "joined up thinking" at a national scale across a whole government is frequently what is missing. Sometimes it's missing within "only" one area such as health and social care but that area alone is already huge and almost unbelievably complicated to run.

There are probably a lot of real costs in our current healthcare system that never make it onto the books as well. For example in many parts of the country it is impossible for an adult to register with a dentist as an NHS patient right now. There are zero dental practices within a reasonable distance of many people willing to accept new NHS patients. That appears to be because the deal governments currently offer to NHS dentists makes no sense financially so it's hard to blame the dentists. But the effect is the same - many of those people are not getting regular dental check ups and preventative or early treatments. The ones who are went private and paid themselves.

That's money going into private healthcare not from the tax man but from the individual patient but that still means the individual patient no longer has that money to be able to afford higher taxes that could better fund the NHS. Unfortunately the lack of huge public outcry as this frog has been boiled only proves that a government strategy of slowly eroding even essential healthcare provision to encourage privatisation by the back door can be effective.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#365

Post by jrochkind1 »

foolswisdom wrote: post #284
lambertsimnel wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition. If small parties' power is such a problem, why don't the big parties form another grand coalition? Or form Scandinavian-style pre-election pacts with the small parties? [Edited to acknowledge grand coalitions aren't a…

Simple, because you aren't going to form a coalition with parties radically different than yours, you choose those that are mostly aligned with you. But now any party within the coalition, even a small one, can force the coalition to listen to them, because the alternative is to form a coalition with parties even more at odds.

What are the radical differences between Likud and Yesh Atid?

(In fact, they did form a government coalition in 2013, which lasted about two years. And then there was the 2020, where the two biggest parties in that election, Likud and Blue and White (of which Yesh Atid was a major constituent), formed a government. So it happens. I'm not sure the current two biggest parties, Likud and Yesh Atid, have a radical difference in policy platform. (the most radical things the newly elected coalition government is putting on the agenda are not really from Likus). They certainly are not going to form a government together this time, but I don't think it's because they are radically different, exactly.).

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#366

Post by fader »

roenxi wrote: post #350
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely none of that is true. The UK has the highest energy prices of any country in Europe and - not coincidentally - its energy companies make the highest profits. The UK could have promoted renewables, and did for a while. But the current government - like you - is actively hostile to decentralised solutions that work, and prefers to promote corporate choke points over energy supply that have put the entire pop…

> It's not even an energy poor country. Looking at the tabulated data [0], in 1965 the UK was roughly 200% the European average for per capita energy consumption. Now it is ~75% of the same. It has dropped in absolute terms too (dropped to ~75% of the 1965 figure). In fact, on a per-capita basis the UK is neck-and-neck with China. Nearly, actually it is slightly behind. It looks a lot like an energy poor country. > T…

> in 1965 the UK was roughly 200% the European average for per capita energy consumption. Now it is ~75% of the same. It has dropped in absolute terms too (dropped to ~75% of the 1965 figure)...

> It looks a lot like an energy poor country.

I'm not sure that follows. Couldn't you also say "it looks a lot like an energy efficient country"?

The Core i7 in my laptop uses a fraction of the energy of the Pentium III in a desktop a couple of decades ago, but I certainly don't want to go back to the P3 today.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#367

Post by scatters »

Tycho wrote: post #360
scatters wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because they do resemble the actual outcomes. The 2 major parties in the UK regularly get majorities in Parliament on far less than 50% of the vote. In the USA gerrymandering has been brought to a fine art. How can this not contribute to discontent, when the majority of people get a government they didn't vote for?

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#368

Post by euix »

6547586970 wrote: post #299
SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious to see what HN's opinion on mandatory voting is. We have that in Australia and the sense is that it tends to dull the extreme fringes of the party platforms since they need to broadly appeal to the mainstream.

I'm always going to be against adding more force and coercion. People are way too quick to reach for that as a solution to every purported problem. I also think many of the people who are forced to vote will do so with the least effort possible and will keep voting for the same party they (and probably their parents) have always voted for without thinking too much about it or doing any research.

Agree with this, the experience of workplace Covid mandates has left a permanent distaste in my mouth that will likely never leave.

I think the Greek way of choosing elected officials - randomly - within some reasonable sampling criteria, i.e. no criminal record, sound mind, at least >=X age would be better at this point. Professional roles such as city attorney can have corresponding pools of possible candidates.

It's like when you have an actively bad betting strategy, it would actually improve your performance to bet randomly.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#369

Post by mushbino »

version_five wrote: post #280
Adverblessly wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition. As a result, decisions that are undesirable by the majority are consistently made. We are currently after an election but before forming a new government and as part of the coalition negotiations the upcoming government…

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.

In the US? I believe the average age of a representative is 75 and most of them have been there for a very long time.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#370

Post by vidarh »

aidos wrote: post #194
narag wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electoral systems are very difficult to change. The party with enough votes to lead the change isn't going to be interested, because it's the system that put them in that position. Edit: So we're talking electoral systems, referenda have a big caveat. Usually you vote a goal, but you don't vote how it's going to be implemented. The brexit was sold as a measure against Brussels' regulation and taxes...

The Uk had a referendum in 2011 to change the system and voted fairly conclusively to stick with first past the post. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternat...

A lot of people who wanted PR saw the Alternative Vote referendum as a poison pill and voted against it. It's one of the reasons support for the Lib Dems subsequently crashed, as they were seen to have fundamentally sold out.

In any case, a referendum on whether to keep a fundamentally undemocratic electoral system is in itself undemocratic - there is no legitimate case for keeping an electoral system that effectively disenfranchises a substantial proportion of the electorate.

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