
Eliminating Political Parties - imgabe
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/eliminating_political_parties/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FihdT+%28The+Dilbert+Blog%29
======
bokonist
I'm reminded of a few quotes. First, Sir Henry Maine in his "Popular
Government":

 _"The old Italian toxicologists are said to have always arranged their
discoveries in a series of three terms—first the poison, next the antidote,
thirdly the drug which neutralised the antidote. The antidote to the
fundamental infirmities of democracy was Representation, but the drug that now
defeats it is the Caucus [political party]"_
[http://books.google.com/books?id=42YpAAAAYAAJ&dq=Popular...](http://books.google.com/books?id=42YpAAAAYAAJ&dq=Popular%20Government&pg=PA94#v=onepage&q=antidote&f=false)

And Noah Webster eloquently states the fundamental problem with party
politics:

<blockquote>

"...nothing is more dangerous to the cause of truth and liberty than a party
spirit. When men are once united, in whatever form, or upon whatever occasion,
the union creates a partiality or friendship for each member of the party or
society. A coalition for any purpose creates an attachment, and inspires a
confidence in the individuals of the party, which does not die with the cause
which united them; but continues, and extends to every other object of social
intercourse."

"Thus we see men first united in some system of religious faith, generally
agree in their political opinions. Natives of the same country, even in a
foreign country, unite and form a separate private society. The Masons feel
attached to each other, though in distant parts of the world."

"The same may be said of Episcopalians, Quakers, Presbyterians, Roman
Catholics, Federalists, and Antifederalists, mechanic societies, chambers of
commerce, Jacobin and Democratic societies. It is altogether immaterial what
circumstance first unites a number of men into a society; whether they first
rally round the church, a square and compass, a cross, or a cap; the general
effect is always the same; while the union continues, the members of the
association feel a particular confidence in each other, which leads them to
believe each other's opinions, to catch each other's passions, and to act in
concert on every question in which they are interested."

"Hence arises what is called bigotry or illiberality. Persons who are united
on any occasion, are more apt to believe the prevailing opinions of their
society, than the prevailing opinions of another society. They examine their
own creeds more fully, (and perhaps with a mind predisposed to believe them),
than they do the creeds of other societies. Hence the full persuasion in every
society that theirs is right; and if I am right, others of course are wrong."
[http://books.google.com/books?id=89QDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=89QDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=0_0#PPA24,M1)

</blockquote>

I agree with Webster, and disagree with Scott Adams on the reason why parties
are bad. The problem with parties is not the money they raise. The problem is
the polarization they create, and how each party's interpretation of events
becomes warped in a way that makes their own side always right, and the other
side always wrong. Overtime it means that both sides end up being half-brained
- and no one has the ability to really solve problems.

That said, banning parties is a non-trivial problem. If you just ban the
nominal form, they will take some other form under a slightly different name.
I think you would have to go all the way and perhaps create a complete ban on
campaigning and campaign promises. Rather than having debates and speeches,
candidates would participate in nationally televised job interviews that would
talk about the candidates background and problem solving abilities.

It may also be that integrating lotteries and randomness into the election
would help with the public choice problem. I have thoughts on a better
election design here: [http://intellectual-detox.com/the-lottery-election-a-
better-...](http://intellectual-detox.com/the-lottery-election-a-better-
election-design/)

~~~
torme
In regards to your better election design, I have three main complaints.

1\. Having candidates review each other seems like a good way to have the
worst candidates float to the top. If you're in a contest with your
competitors, given the option to knock the best options out of the race,
wouldn't you do so? It seems like you're taking an overly optimistic view of
human nature.

2\. Having a large portion of the election based on randomness seems like it
would diminish voter turnout even further. I understand its an attempt to
reduce the noise created by the surrounded hype of a candidate, and that it
would cause people to research these people on their own, but I dont think
that would happen. I think people would see 2 random people, have no interest
in either of them at a surface value, and then not vote as a result.

3\. I dislike your criteria for selecting candidates, particularly for
financial value. I don't think that a wealthy person is necessarily any more
qualified than a poor man. I like the idea that the common man is able to
obtain a position of power, regardless of background, but maybe I've watched
Mr Smith Goes to Washington too many times.

I do agree that there's an issue with polarization, but I think that at the
end of the day, you'll still have two candidates, and that you'll end up with
polarization anyways. At the same time, I think there are problems with having
too many candidate options, as I mentioned in my other post in this thread.
Maybe 2 is too few, and 10 is too many, and theres a happy medium in the
middle somewhere.

~~~
bokonist
1) In the first round of the election, with 18,000 candidates and 18,000
voters, the impact of each vote individually is negligible. In scenarios where
an individual vote is of negligible value, votes generally do not vote out of
crass self interest, but vote based on how the vote makes them feel out
themselves - people vote out of sense of duty, justice, or social solidarity.
Thus I would not expect the elector-voters to vote out of crass strategic self
interest because it wouldn't really help them, and it would make the person
feel rotten about themselves.

In the later rounds, though, it might be a problem. One idea I thought of is
that "honey pot" applications of known awful candidates get planted in the
mix, and if you give a top grade to one of these awful applicants, you're vote
is disqualified.

But overall you may be right - the variation in which people outside the
election are allowed to vote would probably be better.

2) Here's a fundamental question - should voting and elections be viewed as a
means to an end? Or an end in itself? If you view voting as an end in itself,
that's essentially a religious claim, and there's no grounds for debate. But
if you view voting as a means to an end, I have no problem excluding people
who aren't willing to put in the time to learn about the candidates. I would
much rather have people not vote at all then vote based on slogans and sound
bites.

3) The financial requirement ( the median income or about $40k in net worth)
is not very steep. By definition, an average person who saves 10% of their
income a year will be able to meet the requirement within ten years. I want my
Representatives to be competent, experienced, wise, long-term-thinking
individuals. If a person cannot meet that requirement, it means that they are
either a) young b) incapable or unwilling of holding down an average job c) a
live-for-the-moment spender. I have no problem excluding such people from
office.

Polarization happens not because of the two candidates, but because of party
spirit. Party spirit is something that happens over time, its the result of
agitators who cultivate a voting block by spreading and ideology, convincing
people to pledge themselves in solidarity, etc.

You can have just as many problems with multiple parties. For instance, the
Weimar Republic had six major parties, yet it is among the worst examples of
the dangers of party politics in history. The problem with our two party
system is not bi-polarization, or a lack of choice. The problem is as Noah
Webster said - its party spirit. And the problem of party spirit will be bad
with two, three or six parties.

~~~
aamar
Re: #2. Let's look at voting according to its consequences, as a mechanism for
hopefully getting good outcomes.

A zero-information voter picking between two candidates is 50% likely to
choose the better candidate. Slogans & sound-bites are designed to efficiently
(i.e. at low cognitive cost) deliver a message which will inform a voter. If a
slogan is totally useless, it leaves me where I was before, at 50%. If some
are slightly helpful, I become a slightly better voter, e.g. 50.0001% likely
to choose the better candidate.

Now let's start with a group of high-information, analytical voters who spent
costly time and energy making a decision -- these people should definitely
vote, as they're (say) 60% likely to choose the right person. Now, adding any
number of additional 50.0001% voters only makes the better outcome more
likely. So we should try to include as many low-information voters as
possible.

There are some ways in which slogans could still be bad. For example, let's
say that slogans are in general more easily constructed by "bad" candidates,
people who are unqualified for governance (not that slogans have zero
correlation with quality, they're _negatively_ correlated). This seems very
unlikely and probably requires a radical theory for the function of language.
Another example, somewhat narrower: let's say sloganeering is consistently
better at selling certain ideas (e.g. low taxes, xenophobia) over others that
inherently require more cognitive energy. This seems plausible, but it also
seems to me that both "good" and "bad" slogans can have inordinate power given
certain conditions in education and culture, so flaws are likely temporary and
can be remediated by work in those areas.

~~~
bokonist
_Slogans & sound-bites are designed to efficiently (i.e. at low cognitive
cost) deliver a message which will inform a voter_

Have you ever been in the back office of a typical political campaign? All
slogans and ads are designed foremost to elect the candidate, not to inform
the voter. An ad will be as deceptive as possible without overstepping the
bounds into an outright factual lie (simply because factual lies are easy to
double check). This is politics 101, I'm shocked that anyone could believe
that slogans and sound bites are information devices.

Since the purpose of a slogan is to deceive, the more susceptible voting is to
slogans, the worse the outcomes will be. Also, the feedback loop is such that
overtime the candidates out compete each other with the base, negative,
demagoguing slogans.

The all time worst case of this Germany. Under the non-democratic, absolute
monarchy of Frederick II the government invited the Jews into the country to
start businesses and grow the economy. But over the course of the 1800's
Germany got an elected parliament, and then a universal suffrage. Over time
politicians out competed each other in blaming problems on the "other" (the
Jews). The first anti-semite politicians in the late 1800's were fairly mild,
but the feedback loop made things worse, culminating in Hitler. Only after
World War II the did the U.S. written constitution ban jingoistic and racist
speech, and restore some sanity to politics.

In general, there are far more ways to be wrong than to be right. Any
selection factor which does not select for truth, will select for falsehood.
Since the selection process for sloganeering does not reward truth, we can
expect it to reward falsehood.

Education is a partial-remedy, but there are limits to how well you can
educate anyone. Plus, it raises the new question - who chooses the educators?
What if say, one political party captures the education system (which is what
has happened in the U.S.)? Essentially what you end up with a hybrid between
theocracy (government by the ideological/information authorities) and
democracy. Since theocracy is also quite a lousy form of government, if I
wanted to improve democracy by splicing in a hybrid gene, I would choose one
other than theocracy.

~~~
aamar
_Have you ever been in the back office of a typical political campaign?_

Yes. I've had many roles including leadership positions in political
campaigns, and including positions where I crafted official campaign language.
I have many friends who have held state directorships or higher roles in
winning presidential (and other) campaigns. However, politics has not been my
main livelihood, so I think I'm informed while also avoiding extremes of
idealism (and cynicism) on this front.

Slogans are certainly short-cuts (reductive), tendentious and often
misleading. They are totally partisan, but they are _also_ informative. It's
certainly upset me when one candidate can spend a lot to get their misleading
slogan out and we don't have the money to get our counter-slogan out. I regret
the crucial role of money generally in U.S. democracy. However, "slogans" are
not "money", and I do think sloganeering/ads are positive, not negative (and
also not optimal). Also "slogans" are not "factionalism" -- another problem
that I think you are right to be interested in and concerned with (but one
that is very difficult to analyze). Also "slogans" are not negativism or
necessarily fear-based even if it maybe seems like that right now; in '08,
both U.S. pres. candidates emphasized mostly positive/uplifting (typically
low-info) slogans.

 _Since the purpose of a slogan is to deceive, the more susceptible voting is
to slogans, the worse the outcomes will be._

This is not right, for several reasons.

First, in practical terms: since outright lies (often) get caught, provocative
statements that have some grain of truth are the ones that get picked up.
These _competing_ slogans are often stupid (very low signal-to-noise ratio),
but the noise -- on average -- cancels out, resulting in people on average
getting slightly better chances to make the right decision. E.g.: CA doesn't
get every proposition right, but through the haze of slogans back and forth on
-- say, prop 23 -- people make the right choice far more often than can be
attributed to chance. Yet, all but the very, very few most informed voters
seem to be voting based on the slogan/ad/heuristic that mysteriously resonated
with them the most.

Second, from a logical perspective: in a 2-person election we start from a
fair coin-flip. How do slogans make things worse? Do they "crowd out"
intelligent analysis, so that what could have been 55% chance to get the right
person becomes a 50% chance? Crowding-out presumes fixed amount of
communication bandwidth, which seems for all practical purposes false. Or do
you imagine that somehow slogans make the election worse than a coin-flip,
taking a 50% chance of success down to only a 40% chance? I can't see how
you'd reach that conclusion without a very elaborate and speculative theory.

I differ on Germany; that historical pathology developed through the action of
intellectuals, artists, economists, and philosophers, as well as through the
compliance of apathetic and ignorant people. Slogans played a role along with
every other form of communication, but we can't single out that form of
communication -- even though some people may know them better than they know
Baeumler or Riefenstahl. Additionally, I don't think post-WWII limitations on
German political speech were eliminations of jingoes or slogans: what's
criminalized is all endorsements, both sloganeering _and seriously
intellectual,_ of certain ideas.

Agree with your concern about partisan capture of education; perhaps isolating
curriculum development from elected officials mitigates. Culture somewhat
helps, though there are few countries with strong, practical free-speech
protections.

------
todayiamme
I find politics to be hideously inefficient. The problem over here is that in
the complex scenarios and choices that face countries. No one answer is
_entirely_ the right answer. Further, there is no way to judge the validity of
an answer, because it is usually an abstraction of a system that has been set
up and there is no way on earth to know if it will fly or not.

The bigger problem is that the system assumes that people make an _informed_
choice in the ballot, but it is quite clear that such people really don't
exist. We are emotional beings who are able to react pretty strongly to
abstract concepts and ideas. Whenever we believe something and make it a part
of us, then it is impossible to have a rational or even a cordial discussion
about it.

What's even more horrifying is that we haven't found a better way to govern
ourselves than this. Everyday lives are at stakes because of decisions taken
inside that system, and all I can do is stand by and stare at a computer
screen.

~~~
ENOTTY
One thing that Libertarians will say about a limited federal government is
that it allows state and local governments to experiment with different
choices.

One, to allow for local governments to account for local differences that a
far-removed federal government couldn't see or understand. And two, to allow
for a large number of experiments to occur with subsequent successes and
failures so that the right answer can be eventually teased out.

~~~
TomOfTTB
I don't think we'll ever get rid of political parties but what I do think the
Internet could do is bring the libertarian concept you speak of a little
closer to reality.

The problem before now is no one has any idea what their local city council
person or state legislator believes. Since TV is geared towards mass
dissemination and that was people's primary means of being informed.

The Internet gives local citizens a way to evaluate their local government in
the same way they evaluate Presidential candidates now which makes giving more
power to the local governments a lot more plausible.

------
pchristensen
Doesn't the winner-take-all nature of elections in the US (as opposed to
proportional representation by party in countries like Sweden) make a two-
party system a natural, emergent outcome? If you're third largest but not near
hurdling the 2nd, your only power is by partnering with or joining one of the
other two parties.

~~~
zipdog
I think the emergence of the two-party system in winner takes all voting is
due as much to the gambit of the voters: if there's a perception that party A
is strongest and party B second strongest, then a vote for party C is
essentialy 'wasted' - it's a better strategy to vote for whichever of A and B
better represents your view

~~~
protomyth
Historically, it was essentially two parties at the start (Federalist, Anti-
Federalist) and has more or less been ever sense. The US is basically built on
the concept. The current problem is that one or both should have been replaced
by now. The current campaign finance laws keep them in power.

~~~
jbooth
Why do you think current campaign finance laws reinforce the existing parties?
Incumbency typically means more of a fundraising base and cozy relationships
with lobbyists, but I don't see how rejiggering campaign finance changes that.
Rich candidates can already self-fund, and eliminating limits would just
strengthen the incumbents (why bribe a potential congressman when you can
bribe a sitting congressman).

The highly gerrymandered districts in most states (70% are safe for one party
or the other) seem to be a bigger problem to me.

~~~
protomyth
Yes, gerrymandered districts are a huge problem, but the lack of ability for a
person to act as a patron / initial investor for a new political party means
that the new rich (any era) aren't able to topple existing parties. That
initial pot of money could spur interest in "normal" people allowing them to
believe change is possible and actually create it.

The only constitutional amendment I would love at this point would be
something along the lines of all districts must start at the northwest corner
and be as close to boxes as community and terrain allow.

~~~
jbooth
Well, we agree on the gerrymandering, but I think you're just seeing what you
want to see WRT campaign finance. Why wouldn't "patrons" just favor existing
congressmen? They can deliver the goods immediately, instead of having to win
a race and get seated first. Eliminates a bunch of risk for a higher ROI.

Basically, I can see your scenario of a noble candidate who can only get
funded by one noble wealthy patron, but I think that will basically never
happen compared to outright bribery which will happen all the time.

I'm inherently suspicious of any politician that's funded by only a few
people. You know they have the candidate/congressman on speed dial, and the
candidate/congressman knows how important they are. It's a built in conflict
of interest. Numerous small-dollar donations, on the other hand, tend to
reflect actual democratic interest in a candidate -- even if it's a machine,
at least they put in the work to build the machine, lots of retail politics
helping lots of little people.

~~~
protomyth
First, I don't see what you consider the difference between bribery and
campaign donation. Is it only a matter of amount? I did say full disclosure,
so everyone knows the funding source.

Right now the corporations, unions, and political parties have ways of
spending large sums of money, but the individual doesn't. I don't see how
allowing individuals changes the possibility of influence peddling. Do you not
believe that a Congressman is currently capable of refusing to take a call
from an important union boss?

"Numerous small-dollar donations, on the other hand, tend to reflect actual
democratic interest in a candidate" - maybe. Funding wise the Republicans go
more that way than the Democrats (strange, but disclosures sometimes tell a
weird story).

~~~
jbooth
Matter of amount and the interest of the party donating. If I'm cutting a $50
check to a candidate, I can't really expect anything back. If I'm cutting a
$500,000 check, you're damn right I do (this also counts for bundling 100
couples for 460k under the current regime, it's just harder).

Unions and political parties are collections of individuals who've organized
for an expressly political purpose. Corporations aren't, and for everything
they've accomplished, they have terrible incentives as regards the political
sphere. The ROI is huge if, for a measly few million, you can swing a vote of
congress.

RE: Republicans and Democrats, my information was that Democrats had done
better in the small-donor game since 2006, but I could be wrong. Regardless,
my opinion is out of small-d democratic principles, I'd feel the same way
about it if it hurt the democrats -- that would just mean we had to do a
better job of appealing to ordinary people and spend less time appealing to
the big money people.

~~~
protomyth
"Unions and political parties are collections of individuals who've organized
for an expressly political purpose."

No, unions are bargaining groups for workers. They have as much / little right
to politics as corporations. Corporations are groups of shareholders and the
days of normal people not owning stock are long over. Look at the hold of
certain unions in California and their pension system woes for an example of
undue influence that is going to bite someone.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the
world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead

People need to be able to start revolutions without the use of arms, and for
US politics that means spending money. I find the preference for parties and
unions to be a poor substitute for individual rights.

------
joshklein
Woah, there are many things wrong with this. I'll limit it to the biggest two.
First, it's important to understand that we (the US) have a very different
political party system than many other western democracies. We have a winner
take all system, where 51% of the votes gains you 100% of the voting power.
This is not the usual state of affairs - in other democracies, 51% of the vote
wins you 51% of the voting power. Or, more accurately, party 1 has 10% of the
power, party 2 has 23% of the power, party 3 has 5% of the power, and so on.

Theoretically, the two party system is meant to make government more agile and
less risk averse. It is supposed to ensure a party is, temporarily, in charge
and able to accomplish its political agenda. In multiparty systems, there is
frequent political deadlock as parties must negotiate to literally "form a
government", or get enough of an alliance between people to mobilize 51% of
the voting power. If you read international press, you often hear about the
"dissolution of the government" in various civilized countries. This means
they've failed in maintaining or forming a coalition, and must go back to
political dealings in order to (in most cases) elect a prime minister and get
behind a political agenda. These multiparty systems are therefore risk averse,
and theoretically worse at achieving widespread governmental action.

I keep using the word "theoretical" because of our obvious governmental
gridlock in the United States. But to look at things like the stimulus package
and the health care bill, and it's not so clear that we're unable to pass
large pieces of legislation.

With no political parties, every single vote would be about political
dealmaking and organizing politicians. We would never get anything done. I'm
not necessarily saying we have the right system, or even a great system, just
that it isn't quite so easy to say "get rid of parties".

Now, to the second point. Jefferson? Puh-lease! I can't stand the frequent
popular allusions to Jefferson the saint. This man was a great part of our
country and one of the most important thinkers of his time. But he also wrote
anti-government propaganda from the office of the vice presidency and had a
near-blood fued with George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton.

Jefferson wouldn't roll over in his grave at this political language; he would
be saying things far worse. If he sprang back to life today, he would suggest
dissolving the federal government, abolishing any standing military, closing
down capital institutions to promote an agrarian lifestyle, and letting
Virginia negotiate a peace treaty with France. Let's not even talk about just
what part of our society would have a real vote and which part would have 3/5
of one. I mean, can we be a little more reasonable with this founding father
stuff?

~~~
philwelch
Actually, 51% of the votes might get you anywhere between ~10% to ~90% of
control, _based on how that 51% is distributed_. In PR, if x% vote for Party
X, Party X holds x% of seats simpliciter. In first past the post, it's
distributed by constituency. If you win 49% in every district and 99% in the
single most populous district, you get only one seat even though you got
strictly more than half the vote (assuming a strict two party system).

One interesting difference between the US system and the parliamentary system
is how coalitions work. In one sense, US parties are themselves coalitions
already. Democrats are a coalition between labor, feminists,
environmentalists, minorities, leftists, civil libertarians, and various
single-issue voters; Republicans are a coalition between militarists, free-
marketers, right-wing Christians of all denominations, and various single-
issue voters. If you're a gun-owning trade unionist, who are you going to vote
for? In practice, places with a lot of gun owning trade unionists end up with
pro-gun Democrats and pro-union Republicans, and then they have to dynamically
form coalitions just like a parliamentary system. Likewise, you don't get huge
factions of the Labour party voting against a Labour PM in Parliament unless
they want to start something; whereas you do get that in the US system. There
are even bipartisan coalitions, between conservative Democrats and Republicans
during the Reagan years, or even single-issue coalitions across both parties
(though these are diminishing--"pro-life" Democrats and "pro-choice"
Republicans have become increasingly ostracized and purged from their
respective parties, for instance). So in effect, the US system allows dynamic
coalitions to form between individual members of Congress, while a PR-based
parliamentary system (theoretically) allows dynamic coalitions to form between
multitudes of small parties. (In practice, there are still pretty tight upper
bounds on how many different parties you can have, for reasons best described
as "brand recognition".) What's the effect? In a parliament, it's harder to
form a coalition, but once formed the coalition effectively runs the table
until someone decides to start over again. In the US system, every individual
piece of legislation can pass or fail, and it's an errand to shove it though.

Gridlock happens for two reasons: one, the US system is designed to gridlock,
two, because opposing sides are learning to fully utilize this design rather
than cooperate against it. The US system is designed to gridlock by having a
bicameral legislature (most parliaments are effectively unicameral) with an
independent executive and veto. The rules of each house require bills to pass
through committees (and, in some cases, cloture) before coming up for a vote.
Then you need an executive signature, or else you have to go through the
legislative system _again_ with higher thresholds for passing. Additionally,
_each house, as well as the executive, is elected separately_. Unless each
house is controlled by the same party as the President, you have to compromise
to get anything done (or, alternately, one side can choose to completely
obstruct the other). Even if each house is controlled by the same party as the
President, you have to get everyone within the party to cooperate.

"With no political parties, every single vote would be about political
dealmaking and organizing politicians. We would never get anything done."?
Every single vote is _already_ about political dealmaking and organizing
politicians. That's how the US system works.

------
torme
I think people throw around ideas like this without considering the side
effects. One problem is that if you remove our bipartisanship you introduce
the possibility of electing someone where a small group of extremists is able
to gain a majority vote because the rest of the candidate pool is so spread
out.

Imagine an election with 15 candidates. 14 of them are democrat/liberals and 1
of them is Neo-Nazi. Who wins? This might be an extreme case, but if you
divide up the voting sensibilities of the majority, you risk the chance that a
smaller group of like-minded people may overrun the race.

Similar instances of this have occurred in the past, such as in France's 2002
election, where Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the second round of elections
because he was running against many other candidates:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie_Le_Pen>

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_presidential_election,_2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_presidential_election,_2002)

I'm not saying that a partied system is a good one, but it's does solve some
problems that should be considered before you dismiss the idea entirely.

edit: added link to french election page

~~~
psadauskas
You combat that by having a runoff. If no one gets a majority, you take the
top 2 or 3, and vote again. This time, the people that voted for one of the
original 14 vote for the one liberal that made it, and the neo-nazi still has
the original small group voting for him, and finally looses.

~~~
torme
Right, and you've essentially just described the party system that's in place
already. We hold primary elections for this same reason. Parties provide a way
for like minded people to agree on a candidate.

------
kgermino
I think that the best system is probably a non-partisan primary followed by a
runoff election between the top 2 or 3.

I feel like this would help make more center of the aisle candidates more
successful in the primaries. Part of the problem with elections now is that
people voting in primaries tend to be near the idealogical extremes resulting
in someone like Christine O'Donnell (A Tea-Partyer) winning the primary in a
state where she doesn't stand a change in the general election.

Additionally in states where the population is more generally liberal or
conservative than there will be two candidates that more accurately reflect
the general populations views instead of one that nobody will ever vote for,
making the general elections more competitive.

------
kgrin
I'm as sad about the demise of campaign finance reform as anyone, but there's
something to be said for free association. You can make a case for restricting
donations and such - but limiting people's right to essentially organize
themselves into groups?

~~~
RyanMcGreal
I'm not sure how it works in the US, but in Ontario, Canada, candidates for
municipal office are forbidden to organize themselves into "slates" and must
instead run as independents.

------
aplari
Intriguing idea, but why the last bit about Thomas Jefferson? One cannot know
what he would have thought of Internet. And more importantly, it doesn't
really matter at all.

~~~
logicalmind
It's really just "appeal to authority", which is a very common logical fallacy
used in politics. Everyone has their opinion on the intent of the founding
fathers and that is used to sway many political arguments.

------
joshcorbin
If you were to eliminate one form of differentiation (parties), another would
evolve to fill the void. In fact, as soon as you start trying to abolish
parties, you will implicitly create at least two parties: those for, and those
against.

The Internet does not solve this; to the contrary, it only help to amplify the
effect of what Freud called the "Narcissm of small differences" (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences> ).

We see this fact recapitulated in every domain of technology such as: \- Linux
v Windows v Apple \- Fedora v Redhat v Debian v Ubuntu v Arch v Gentoo v ...
\- $OUR_EDITOR v $THEIR_EDITOR \- Slashdot v Hacker News

The difference is that the political landscape isn't nearly as diverse.
However this is changing already due to the Internet. Agree with their views
or not, the Tea Party is sign of this.

The way forward is to partition more, not less. Trying to pretend like we can
do away with partitions is flawed at inception.

------
jrs235
Come on people. You're all completely missing the first and simplest change.
Remove the party identification from the ballot. Just list the names. And also
remove the option to vote a straight party line by checking one option. Too
many people vote uninformed. Minimally if you are voting shouldn't you
minimally know something about the candidate prior to voting?

------
notahacker
Trying to force people not to represent themselves as part of a wider
organisation would be an extreme step.

Removing party allegiance as a basic component of the voter registration
system would be a start. Leave the parties to administer themselves and non-
affiliation with a particular party as the norm rather than the exception.

------
JimmyL
See some discussion of this article yesterday at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1869226>

------
moshezadka
I'm not even sure what he's suggesting. It's easy to say "let's ban political
parties", but what would be the actual law? That people aren't allowed to call
themselves Democrats (or Republicans?)? That people aren't allowed to say "I
identify with the ideals espoused by X?"

Parties are an emergent phenomenon in almost all democratic systems, because
politicians work in groups -- the same as anyone else, by the way. If Scott
Adams suggested a specific legal system (for example, banning pooling campaign
funds) I could find the flaw in that, but he cleverly gives no details, and so
makes it impossible for people to find flaws in his (non-existent) system.

------
logophobia
The issue in the USA isn't necessarily that politicians organize themselves
into different groups/parties, but that there is essentially no choice.

The election system in the USA is mostly organized in district/state sort of
way, where the winner of the state elections gets all the votes. This makes it
very hard for more then two parties to participate in the election.

Since there is no choice, there is very little incentive to listen to the
electorate (always vote for the lesser evil). I live in a country with no
district system (and thus multiple parties). While it isn't even close to
perfect, at least I can vote for people I mostly agree with.

~~~
LargeWu
President is the only office where the votes are cast by who wins the entire
state. It's called the Electoral College, and it's constitutionally required.
However, it's not constitutionally mandated that the winner of the state gets
all that state's votes. A few (Maine and Nebraska) cast their votes based on
who wins the congressional districts.

Otherwise, there are in fact more than 2 parties, they just dont' get as much
support, and the two major parties generally like to keep it that way.
Occasionally though you will see minor party candidates or independent
candidates win major offices.

~~~
logophobia
Note that I said district/state. Your senate has 2 seats for each state and
the house has a seat for each district. This still means that there is no
realistic way for a third party to get any sort of real power. Because the
votes are arbitrarily divided among districts, only parties that have
significant majorities have a chance of winning.

Any third party in the USA has very little chance of winning any seat. Even if
they have 10% support among the electorate it is unlikely that they'll get
much seats. The nice thing about a system without districts is that smaller
parties get power approximately in proportion to the votes they get. The
coalitions you get in these systems are messy but more fair.

It's a bit unrealistic to forbid people from forming political parties on
these somewhat vague assertions. Reforming the election system to be more fair
to smaller parties should have a bigger effect I think.

------
spang
I'm still waiting for preferential voting. That would go a long way toward
making the political conversation something more than the current two-party
polarization.

------
meric
Like this? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoex>

~~~
maresca
They use an e-democracy or electronic direct democracy. This is exactly what
my startup is focused on. An e-democracy for America.

<http://www.openpoll.us>

/shameless plug

~~~
meric
Cool. Hmm you might want to check your site using Safari, there's a line right
through the log-in form, and about & register are not aligned horizontally. I
looked at your site on firefox also and it looks fine from there.

~~~
maresca
Thanks for the heads up. I typically view it in firefox, chrome, and IE. I am
in the data acquisition stage right now. I am going to do another redesign
right before the alpha release.

------
epochwolf
I've given this a bit of thought over the years. I love the idea but I don't
think you can avoid having candidates grouping themselves into parties
informally and then voting to make parties legal in a few years.

~~~
astine
If this were to be enacted in the United States, it would likely be as a
Constitutional amendment, in which case, Congress could not simply vote to
reverse the decision.

~~~
epochwolf
Except that congress can reverse an amendment by passing a new one.

~~~
astine
... Congress _cannot_ pass amendments. Congress can however propose them with
a two thirds majority. Then, if three-quarters of the states ratify it, it can
go into effect. That's a very high bar to pass especially in the absence of
political parties.

I know that this is a judgmental thing to say but: This is civics 101. If you
vote in the United States, you should know this.

~~~
shasta
Don't forget that the courts can also amend the constitution, and it only
requires a simple majority!

------
dstein
Maybe the US should aim a little lower, and first try to eliminate the 2-party
system. The system is _designed_ to be dysfunctional.

------
known
<http://metagovernment.org/wiki/Main_Page>

------
known
The tragedy with democracy is it is devoid of objectivity.

