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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">The Plant report <br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold""><br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">The
thesis of the Plant report, a 1990s Labour in-house report, is
that there are two fundamentally different types
of representation, which they call majoritarian and
proportional. The report
merely asserts an assumption, here. The intermediate Plant
report holds
elections to be a matter of judgment. The Labour Party can do
no better than
assert electoral authority. This, it should not have, because
contestants
cannot be their own referees. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">It
goes on to say that majoritarian rule is more suited to
executive assemblies,
powerful enough for decisive government, without challenge.
The Labour
leadership means, here, the House of Commons. In other words,
“elective
dictatorship” is not to be challenged, for the top people,
themselves. Less
powerful assemblies, as for<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>the
regions,
may have less need to push legislation thru. They can afford
to be more or less
proportionally elected debating chambers. However, knowledge
proceeds by
debate, not by dictate. Contrary to advances in the sciences,
the political
class betray a prejudice that progress does not proceed by
agreement but by
submission to authority. (Perhaps the calculation was that
Scottish nationalism
would be less likely to win independence, under a proportional
system. This has
not proved the case. SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon currently
presses for a second
independence referendum.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">The
Plant report thesis is based on a false dichotomy. John Stuart
Mill
refuted the tyranny of the majority, for the equal or
proportional rule of all
the people, as democracy. In fact, a majority so-called is
only a single
majority, whereas proportion constitutes equal majorities,
being few or many
multiple majorities. The difference between majority and
proportion is
essentially the difference between the first term and the
successive terms, in
the Droop quota series. So, there is a rational continuity,
between majority
and proportion. The Plant report assertion otherwise is just
that, assertion, an
authoritarian prejudice.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">John
Stuart Mill, our greatest democrat, entered Parliament against
the odds, to
advocate the legal equality of women, including the suffrage.
Also he promoted
the radical democracy of “Mr Hare’s system,” from which
politicians have been
running away, ever since. But in which the Plant committee was
pleased to find
indication of a Mill frightened of democracy – despite his
avowal of democracy.
He was already aware that the representation of minorities
enhanced, rather
than the topsy-turvy time-honored argument that it diminished,
over-all
representation. The Plant report so-called “mass democracy” is
the stripping of
representation, in a winner takes all system, of as little as
35% of the votes,
electing first past the post. And that simple plurality count
stampedes huddles
or herds into competing partisans. Party politicians hold
elections like cowboy
herdings. Any genuine democrat, from Ostrogorski and Graham
Wallas on Human
Nature In Politics, would be legitimately afraid of that
trampling fraud.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">The
intermediate Plant report claims it is glad that it did not
support the Single
Transferable Vote (the Hare system extremely diminished) after
reviewing the
Riker evidence against it. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">Dr
David Hill pointed out that the Plant report rejected STV on
grounds of
non-monotonicity, yet recommended a more non-monotonic
Supplementary Vote. (An American
reviewer found this observation to be unanswerable.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">Riker
does not criticise the transfer of surplus votes (which is the
essence of formal
STV). Instead, Riker provides an example, with no surplus
votes. A candidate
can be given more votes, from a rival. If that makes the rival
the trailing
candidate, he is eliminated, and his next preferences may help
elect another
rival. This is paradoxical and Riker goes on to assert that
the system is
“chaotic.” (Chaos theory was in fashion.) But the evidence, of
over a centurys
use, is that STV is a stable system, in which the sum of
individual voter
preferences are well reflected in the outcome of the count.
The chaos claim is
unfounded rhetoric. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">A
“last past the post” STV method of excluding candidates is
indeed
“non-monotonic” to use the jargon. There is a theoretical
possibility that the
lacking of rationality, in the STV exclusion count, produces
untoward effects.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">My
invention of “Binomial STV” however is monotonic, unlike
traditional STV
versions. This was confirmed by (at least at the time) a not
too sympathetic expert,
Kristofer Munsterhjelm. The reason he gave, was that Binomial
STV counts
abstensions. The reason, I gave, is that Binomial STV is not
only a rational
election count but also a rational exclusion count.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold""> Regards,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold"">Richard Lung.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold""><br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Rounded MT
Bold""><br>
</span></p>
</p>
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