[EM] Response to Kristofer Musterhjelm

[David L Wetzell]

On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Jameson Quinn <jameson.quinn at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>> dlw: too much pluralism can make it hard to make needed changes.  You
>> need leadership to make changes.  If the ruling coalition shifts often then
>> it's hard to follow through with changes.
>>
>
> JQ:That's a feature of parliamentary systems. The US has a
> directly-elected president, and also lacks the party discipline to have
> meaningful "governing coalitions". True party-line votes are rare.
>

dlwIn the past, there was intra-party discipline in the US.  An unintended
consequence of the CFR enacted in the mid 70s and the emergence of
primaries has been to make our system way too entrepreneurial.

 My point is that if we handicap the rivalry between the two major parties
through the use of American forms of PR for "more local" elections then we
should be able to restore intra-party discipline.

>
>>> KM:If anything, I would say that the party political system here (which
>>> is more fluid than the one in the US) is still quite hierarchical, and that
>>> one could go to a system without parties (like demarchy or Gohlke's
>>> Practical Democracy) without losing order amid change.
>>
>>
>> dlw: I think it's okay for both major parties to be hierarchical, to have
>> intra-party discipline, so long as neither can dominate the other and there
>> are other meaningful options available for voters.
>> I think we can trust in the politics of Gandhi/MLKjr (and hopefully #OWS)
>> more so for the crucial sorts of changes needed.
>>
>
> JQ: Trust but aid. A citizen movement can accomplish things even in a
> monarchy, but in a system which empowers them more, they will accomplish
> more.
>

dlw: Aye, but if we're putting most of our chips on the politics of Gandhi
then we can afford to be pragmatic, rather than perfectionistic, wrt
electoral reform.

 dlw: I have read about majority judgement.  I think it's very good for a
>> country that has a strong cultural agreements about what is to be expected
>> for their leaders.  And so I'd have no problem with its use in France or
>> Scandinavia.
>>
>
> In MJ, the only meaningful cultural agreement you need is the "grading
> curve", not the underlying meaning of that. If a majority can agree that
> ~10% of the candidates are "A+", ~20% are "A", etc., it does not matter
> that these grades refer to entirely different qualities in entirely
> different candidates.
>

dlw: It's been a little while since I read Majority Judgement by Balinski
and Laraki and so my thoughts/intuition here is rusty.  The typical
comparsion is with wines, I believe.  There may be objective qualities, but
their relative import is un question du gout.
But I believe MJ works best when there's a strong plurality of cultural
judgements about what's important.

>  KM:As for IRV, I don't know. IRV3 still can exhibit nonmonotonicity,
>>> Condorcet failure, reversal non-symmetry, etc.
>>
>> The "viable third party" problem that makes it risky to do IRV in certain
>>> situations like Burlington also shows up even with only three candidates -
>>> if those three are from different parties. If the third party candidate is
>>> weak, IRV is essentially spoiler-free, but if the third party candidate
>>> grows stronger, the order of eliminations can switch to one that elects the
>>> second best winner instead of the best, and where voting for the best
>>> candidate only moves the method further into not-best territory. It doesn't
>>> have to be like this.
>>>
>>
>> dlw: I think more practically that IRV3/AV3(uses a limited form of AV to
>> get three finalists) enforces the maintenance of a two-party dominated
>> system.   It also tends to be somewhat incumbent friendly.  This makes it
>> easier for it to get adopted by legislators, who mostly are going to be
>> incumbents.
>>
>> Most of the features mentioned above may happen, but they don't happen
>> that often and their practical consequences aren't that great when we
>> consider that parties can and do change(for worse or better) and that the
>> best way to change things is to move the center via the politics of
>> Gandhi/MLKjr/#OWS.
>>
>
> JQ:You're saying that the practical consequences of spoiled elections
> aren't that great? Do you remember the rancor between Democrats and Greens
> after 2000? Not to mention the result itself...
>

dlw: Over time, with IRV and a dynamic center(and consequently two more
dynamic major parties), the consequences wouldn't be that great

>
>
>>> KM:You can see this for yourself by tinkering with Ka-Ping Yee's 1D
>>> Gaussian visualization. If you use three candidates and have two of them
>>> far away from the middle, IRV acts like you would expect. Move the red and
>>> yellow closer to the middle green, though, and on the IRV line, an island
>>> of yellow suddenly appears. Tinker further and the island has both yellow
>>> and red on it. I've attached an example of this.
>>
>>
>> dlw: I've seen that before.  Like I said, if the center is dynamic and so
>> are the two biggest party, it's not that big of a deal...
>>
>
> JQ:I disagree. Sure, it's not as bad as plurality, but it is worth
> avoiding.
>

Why?  The location of parties is dynamic/endogenous and so static models
are always incomplete and rarely dispositive of the matter.  This comes
down to whether it's desirable or not to continue a two-party dominated
ssytem.  And I think that's a matter of political culture....  I happen to
think that two major parties is preferable to two coalitions of parties.


>
>>>> Just wait for my vaporware...
>

Sure, but keep your day job.  There's serious economies of scale in
peddling electoral reforms to the masses who are ignorant on the complex
subject.
dlw

>
> Jameson
>
>>
>> dlw
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
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