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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

#371

Post by vidarh »

gman83 wrote: post #253
dignick wrote: post #145

Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. Our first past the post electoral system means the Tories can retain power with a third of the (active) electorate voting for them. Labour believes first past the post serves them well, but it doesn’t, because they would have been leading a coalition government in the last several elections under Proportional Representation. Instead it requires Labour to b…

Proportional representation also has its problems. Look at the Netherlands, which has 17 different parties in parliament and led to it becoming increasingly difficult to form coalitions, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%932022_Dutch_cabine...

If that is what voters want, that is what voters should get.

Depriving voters of freedom to be represented the way they want because you don't like the outcome is fundamentally undemocratic.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#372

Post by justin66 »

mushbino wrote: post #369
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.

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.

> average age of a representative is 75

Come on. It's 58. I didn't even have to type to check this, just "Search Google for..."

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#373

Post by roenxi »

fader wrote: post #366
roenxi wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Do you reckon you have reduced your energy substantially since the 2000s? With no lifestyle compromises? A 25% drop is a lot more than a Pentium.

They're poor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox#History covers most of the actual argument (and evidence) on why energy efficiency doesn't work that way. In an energy-rich environment the efficiency gains would go in to charging phones and tablets, or running extra cores and graphics cards. Or using electric vehicles. Something. Consumption wouldn't be dropping.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#374

Post by captaincrowbar »

pantalaimon wrote: post #331
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…

Is there a minimum quorum a party has to reach before they can enter parliament? In Germany they need to get at least 5% of the votes. This was introduced because many small parties had made the parliament of the Weimar Republik unstable.

When New Zealand went shopping for a new electoral system in the 1990s, we ended up with one based closely on the German model, including the 5% threshold. The Israeli parliament was frequently pointed to as an Awful Warning of what would happen if we din't have the threshold.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#376

Post by Silhouette »

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.

We're talking about politics and democracy here. People will always have a diverse range of opinions on political issues where none of those opinions is objectively "right".

Hopefully one opinion that most would agree on is that in matters of fact any competent representative should pay attention to the knowledge and advice of experts.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#377

Post by fader »

roenxi wrote: post #373
fader wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Do you reckon you have reduced your energy substantially since the 2000s? With no lifestyle compromises? A 25% drop is a lot more than a Pentium. They're poor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox#History covers most of the actual argument (and evidence) on why energy efficiency doesn't work that way. In an energy-rich environment the efficiency gains would go in to charging phones and tablets, or running ext…

Personally, yes -- I have significantly smaller gas and electric bills despite being in a larger house in a colder climate as a result of better construction and insulation and more energy-efficient appliances. I also moved to a city where I can walk or bike for daily tasks so I fill up my (more fuel-efficient) car's gas tank about a quarter as often.

I'm not claiming this is the case generally across the UK -- I'm in the US and don't know the situation there. Just that it doesn't automatically follow that "I'm using less energy" necessarily equates to "less energy is available for me to use".

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#378

Post by [deleted] »

Silhouette wrote: post #286
mjfl wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"democracy is under threat when people I don't like are democratically elected." Is it invisible to you how such statements are, themselves, bad for democracy?

The problem is that in many Western systems the people who gain power aren't democratically elected. In a real democracy the big challenge should be how to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. However most of us aren't even getting that far because the people who gain power often don't even have the support or even acceptance of the majority.

[deleted]

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#379

Post by TapWaterBandit »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #349
TapWaterBandit wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hard to disentangle the temperament of the populace from the voting system. The UK and all former settler colonies (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) all have very stable politics and that generally appeal to the median voter. None of them really have any extreme political incidents in living memory that I can think of. (maybe a few extreme incidents by their own standards but on a global standard they are still…

"former settler colonies". US and South Africa do not count? How about Latin America vis-a-vis Spain and Portugal?

I thought it was implied but I meant former settler colonies of the UK specifically.

The USA could be included and does have overall remarkably stable politics compared to most of the world. I didn't include it due to the length of time it has been separate from the UK, however there was substantial emigration from the British Isles to the USA in the 19th century with the settling of the West (more British went to the USA in the 19th century than Canada/Australia/NZ/South Africa combined and served as a 2nd large wave of Anglofying influence on the nation). I would lump it in with the other nations I mention as having overall extreme stable politics and high adherence to political norms that can be broadly characterised as the "Anglo model of politics".

South Africa is a bit of a unique case. Due to the Apartheid system it never had any of the sort of political stability that characterises the politics of the other nations mentioned.

The political culture of Spain/Portugal is massively different from the UK (especially at the time of the colonisation of the Americas) and the model of politics in the nations of South America is very different as a result.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#380

Post by binarycrusader »

justin66 wrote: post #372
mushbino wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> average age of a representative is 75 Come on. It's 58. I didn't even have to type to check this, just "Search Google for..."

Congress? Sure. But the Senate? Median age there is ~69 years. Median term length? Nearly 14 years!

https://infogalactic.com/info/List_of_current_United_States_...

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