[EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process

[Juho Laatu]

On 2.7.2012, at 16.08, Fred Gohlke wrote:

> re: "At least in theory we could have a political system that
>     runs on goverment budget money only."
> 
> That can't happen because the donation of private money to support political action has been deemed an expression of free speech.

It is possible that some people see it that way, and accept only that approach. But also a system where the govenrment offers web pages for all candidates to freely express their opinions, and where campaign costs are limited to gas for the car of the candidate, could be interpreted as a system that guarantees full freedom of speech to all candidates.

> re: "I refer e.g. to the soviet system that tried to rule the
>     country and even the world by lifting the best persons to
>     the top (without allowing opposition that could have acted
>     as a counter-poison)."
> 
> The 'best persons' you speak of were only best from the point of view of the party.  Of course they didn't allow opposition.  As I've said before, parties always "seek the power to impose their views on those who don't share them."  They don't always succeed, but when they do it's catastrophic.  The threat of domination is always present in a party-based system.

As well as in a party-free system.

> re: "One may try to improve the current (maybe multi) party
>     based systems so that the harmful effects of sponsoring,
>     self-interest and party favourite candidates will
>     gradually reduce."
> 
> That can't happen for a very fundamental reason, a reason that was explained in detail 100 years ago by Robert Michels, when he wrote "Political Parties".  You can find the link in a post I made yesterday.  I hope you'll read it.  It's fascinating.

I'll check this one (maybe the other one too if I get it).

Juho