From: | "Jiri Polak" <jiri.polak(at)swipnet.se> |
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Date: | Mon, 9 Aug 2010 16:58:51 +0200 |
Subject: | Re: [WDDM] Politicians are the employees of the voters |
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I wonder if anyone would considervote.
the notion that a political system based on voting is anti-democratic?
To vote is, by definition, to make a choice regarding an issue or
person proposed by others (whoever they may be).
What --- in that concept --- gives voters an opportunity to advocate
their own view?
Anyone who read Robert Michels' 1915 book, Political Parties: A
Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy,
must see that partisan systems subject us to the Iron Law of Oligarchy.
The voters have no choices but those offered by their 'leaders'.
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/michels/polipart.pdf
Contemporary politic systems are campaign and partisan based and
define the issues and individuals upon whom the public is permitted to
Partisan systems disenfranchise the majority of the electorate. They
provide no way to aggregate the attitudes and wishes of the majority
of the body politic --- the non-partisans.
Roy Daine, before his untimely death two years ago, and I offered a
practical alternative to partisan systems; an electoral process that
let everyone in the electorate participate in the electoral process to
the full extent of his or her desire and ability. I can publish the
details again, but, except for Vijayaraghavan Padmanabhan, there
doesn't seem to be many WDDM members interested in the concept.
Fred Gohlke