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Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

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Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#41

Post by bartread »

mindwok wrote: post #20

British democracy and government is cool. It's not enshrined in some document they got together and wrote down like the US constitution, it's this organic thing that they've stumbled towards over the last ~800 years with small changes like this one gradually evolving them into a modern liberal democracy.

There is something to be said for your written constitution though: having the fundamental principles on which your nation is founded enshrined in that way should, at least in theory, make it a lot easier to settle arguments (though in practice, and particularly recently, that does seem not to be the case). Constitutional wrangling in the UK is always really fraught though because it's all done by precedent and is therefore incredibly hard work to get to a clear understanding of what the situation really is.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#42

Post by npunt »

kbelder wrote: post #24
theodric wrote: post #11

The point of the hereditary peerage was the same as the point of having a non-elected Senate. Now both will have been lost in the name of "democracy" - a system of government that constantly fails to do either what is the desire of the people OR what is truly in their interests. From here on out it'll just be whoever manages to connive their way into power through connections, payola, corruption, island meetups, and…

How about a chamber populated by random lottery? Like jury duty?

Read/watch this interview [1] with Ada Palmer on her new book about the Renaissance. Florence did this for a time.

> You put names in a bag. You examine all of the merchant members of guilds. You choose which ones are fit to serve, meaning not ill and dying, not insane, not so deeply in debt that they could be manipulated by the people whom they owe money to. Their names go in a bag. You choose nine guys at random. They rule the city. They are put in a palace where they rule the city from that tower.

> They’re actually locked in the tower for the duration of their time in office because if they left the tower, they could be bribed or kidnapped. They rule the city for two or three months. At the end, they are thanked for their service and escorted out, and then a different nine guys share power for the next three months. It’s a power sharing that is designed to be tyrant-proof because you need consensus of nine randomly selected guys to decide to do anything.

[1] https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ada-palmer

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#43

Post by consp »

theodric wrote: post #18
tartoran wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a hereditary system work any better? Plenty of monarchies based on heredity ran themselves into the ground.

It provides an additional check. Much like a monarch, a noble's interests are tied to the welfare of the country itself. Without the country, they're just a toff with some money and an overinflated sense of self-importance.

> a noble's interests are tied to the welfare of the country itself.

I'd argue their interest is tied to the welfare of the country for themselves, not the country itself or the general public.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#44

Post by infotainment »

sb057 wrote: post #27

Also in the pipeline: elimination of jury trials https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2x01yne13o

> The proposals, which return to Parliament on Tuesday, would replace juries in England and Wales with a single judge in cases where a convicted defendant would be jailed for up to three years.

Wow, this is literally the plot of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney video games. I'm sure it will go great with no downsides.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#45

Post by pjc50 »

jfengel wrote: post #23
Chinjut wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Senate is, while not the whole story, a significant part of the reason the government constantly fails to do what is either the desire of the people or what's in their interests. I wouldn't lament losing the Senate.

The US Senate is designed to check and balance the House of Representatives. But that often puts the Congress as a whole in deadlock, meaning it can no longer balance the other two branches. When they could get anything done they delegated a lot of power to the Executive. Which worked ok, but eventually a "unitary executive" appropriated even more power, and the Legislature is powerless to prevent it.

Unpopular opinion: deadlock is fine. Most legislation is bad. What really matters is the budget. And the rule that failing to pass a budget can automatically force an election avoids the absurd US "shutdown" that isn't a shutdown.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#46

Post by anon84873628 »

pydry wrote: post #19
iberator wrote: post #7

Win for democracy and fair representation of the working class! Being Noble is like saying 'i used to have slaves(even if not, then feudalism was the de'facto slave system too!) and made profits from it' Such people are enemies of humanity and democracy and markets. I hope one day they all just go. King and his small family is fine btw. Cultural reason:)

Until the UK military pledge allegiance to democracy rather than the king, the royal family is also a risk to democracy. Thailand is an object lesson in how monarchy is repeatedly used as a lever by military and business elites to overthrow democratic representation "in the name of the king". It almost happened in the UK once, too, in the same way it happened in Thailand. The reason the media is so keen on the instit…

Should have used it to prevent Brexit.

Just look at the US right now to see how civil military control can go off the rails too.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#47

Post by jongjong »

This is a dark day for the monarchy... and for democracy in the UK.

Remove the only people who actually have a long-term vested non-financial interest in the system and replace them with more revolving-door politicians backed by the big money so that the big money can operate with even less friction than before. Great. Just great.

The problem with our current democratic systems with unlimited government fiat money is that capital is in control. Not voters. Capital. This should be obvious by now. Someone deprived of food will vote for whoever you tell them to vote for.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#49

Post by s_dev »

mindwok wrote: post #20

British democracy and government is cool. It's not enshrined in some document they got together and wrote down like the US constitution, it's this organic thing that they've stumbled towards over the last ~800 years with small changes like this one gradually evolving them into a modern liberal democracy.

If cool means interesting then yes, it is cool because it's archaic and different but it's not effective. It's the equivalent of a verbal contract. It's simply not as clear or coherent as a written one.

Irish democracy in contrast uses STV voting and a written constitution and is modeled between the best of what the UK, the US and France had to offer when it was drafted and is a very representative democracy with many political parties compared to the duopolies in the US and the UK. It's also why Ireland is largely immune to hard shifts to the left or right relative to the UK and US.

Re: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years

#50

Post by bonoboTP »

tartoran wrote: post #15
theodric wrote: post #11

The point of the hereditary peerage was the same as the point of having a non-elected Senate. Now both will have been lost in the name of "democracy" - a system of government that constantly fails to do either what is the desire of the people OR what is truly in their interests. From here on out it'll just be whoever manages to connive their way into power through connections, payola, corruption, island meetups, and…

Why would a hereditary system work any better? Plenty of monarchies based on heredity ran themselves into the ground.

It's interesting how people never even learn about any upsides to that. Even if the balance comes out on the side of elected officials, it's good to at least have some idea of why so many societies have worked like that (other than "they were dumb and evil I guess").

The main thing is long-term stability and limits on backstabbing and ruthless competition. Sure it doesn't bring it to zero, plenty of bloody examples from history. But when someone gets close to power for the first time and might be out of there quite soon, and have to watch out for being replaced quickly, they will behave quite differently than someone who plans ahead in decades and generations (if all things go well). If you have a short time under the sun, you better extract all you can while it lasts.

It's kind of like a lifetime appointment or like tenure, except also across generations. Tenure allows professors to ignore short-term ups and downs and allows them some resilience and slack (though funding is still an issue). Similarly a nobleman can "relax" and take a longer-term view on things. The failure mode is that they stop caring and become lazy and just enjoy their position.

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