tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post2260493451912223979..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: The US Presidential And Separation Of Powers System Versus Parliamentary DemocracyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-42297020265667917442015-03-17T13:04:00.502-04:002015-03-17T13:04:00.502-04:00"You want to claim that all those European pa... "You want to claim that all those European parliamentary democracies are bigger plutocracies than is the US?"<br /><br />I want to argue that "inane gridlock," as you put it, is not a technical problem, but the consequence of advanced plutocracy. That the U.S. may be more advanced on the road to plutocracy merely adds force to my argument.<br /><br />There are "technical" problems with the U.S. political constitution, which the British do not suffer. One is a consequence of the character of U.S. federalism, in which the states are not creatures of the federal government, or vice versa. Britain regularly adjusts and rationalizes its systems of local and regional government; the U.S. can do so only with the greatest difficulty. <br /><br />On the other hand, as I said, parliament in Britain was formed under an oligarchic landed aristocracy and reformed in the 19th century by an opulent and oppressive capitalist plutocracy. As Britain becomes more plutocratic, it will show fewer strains than the American political system, which formed in a far more egalitarian society, and arrived in its present form in the Age of Jackson, amid universal manhood suffrage and mass parties.<br /><br />Parliamentary majorities, for example, can form from electoral minorities that are remarkably small. I've forgotten when the last time a governing majority represented an electoral majority in Britain (and I'm not even talking about declining voter participation). Minority rule is built in and need not be controversial.<br /><br />Republican efforts at gerrymandering and voter suppression since 2010 in the U.S. have been remarkably successful and are symptomatic of increasing plutocracy at work, but they also cut against the grain of the American constitution, and so result in more resistance and protest and dissonance, as the election of President, Senate, the House, and State Governors and Legislatures must be coordinated and each has its own electoral basis, and therefore diversity.Bruce Wilderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09631065564839959376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-56337220302744841002015-03-17T07:33:05.808-04:002015-03-17T07:33:05.808-04:00Re: ".. In the UK parliament, the PM has a q...Re: ".. In the UK parliament, the PM has a question time, and the opposition can and does question him closely, with the public listening live...."<br /><br />This happens in Australia, on TV, if you want to sit up and wait to the wee hours of the morning. There's also a TV show on the Australian Broadcasting Commissions program called Q&A. Where politicians sit around a table with interesting characters and they discuss various topics of the day.<br /><br />The biggest problem with both venues is that the analysis is very shallow and key information is withheld from the public. A classic example is this week's discussion about superannuation and how we all have to save more for our retirement. As if money is a long-term store of real value. As if the imposition of compulsory superannuation doesn't translate into higher prices for labour and goods....etc.Myrtle Blackwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07427043367624101075noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-73054590769796888912015-03-16T21:18:38.511-04:002015-03-16T21:18:38.511-04:00
Parliamentary systems can mostly be redesigned pi...<br />Parliamentary systems can mostly be redesigned piecemeal - as representation broadens, the changes in parliament flow through to the executive and judiciary. The US system is more compartmentalised, and extensive federalism makes it more so.Peter Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13289172253358199028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-58168088428586420512015-03-16T20:43:59.339-04:002015-03-16T20:43:59.339-04:00Bruce,
Hmmm. You want to claim that all those Eu...Bruce,<br /><br />Hmmm. You want to claim that all those European parliamentary democracies are bigger plutocracies than is the US? Well, the British one may be close to us in that grain, but Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Japan? Really?<br /><br />Certainly it is the case that parliamentary democracies are more subject to sudden big changes of major policies, even systemic ones, than our essentially conservative system where with all the separation of powers it is hard to get all of the branches of government fully on board with some big change. But, keep in mind that those parliamentary democracies have sometimes made sudden lurches to the left, with the rule by the British Labour Party in the late 1940s when they nationalized medicine and a bunch of other stuff being a poster boy example. Of course, that can go the other way as well, such as with Margaret Thatcher, although even she did not undo British socialized medicine.<br /><br />I cannot resist adding that in his Road to Serfdom, published in 1944 when he was foreseeing that postwar Labour Party victory and feared they would impose a full-blown Soviet-style centrally planned, full-bore, socialist system, he supported national health insurance, which we have still not gotten in the US. He later apparently became dissatisfied with their system due to a son working for it and being unhappy with it, but it goes well beyond the simple national health insurance he proposed in the RtS.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-37784367449306283772015-03-16T11:17:21.736-04:002015-03-16T11:17:21.736-04:00"excessive partisanship has recently led this..."excessive partisanship has recently led this to a state of inane gridlock"<br /><br />Wrong diagnosis. The inane partisanship is just symptomatic of the disease: plutocracy.<br /><br />Parliamentary systems were designed by history for plutocracy, and adjust more smoothly to a return toward government dominated by narrow interests. The U.S. system was designed for a more broadly popular and interested politics, and presents plutocracy as an uglier spectacle.Bruce Wilderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09631065564839959376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-7636646187263108752015-03-16T04:03:34.932-04:002015-03-16T04:03:34.932-04:00"Doomed" sounds too strong to me, but it..."Doomed" sounds too strong to me, but it is certainly getting more and more dysfunctional.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-68124813898873333852015-03-15T22:24:02.654-04:002015-03-15T22:24:02.654-04:00So would you agree with Matthew Yglesias, that our...So would you agree with Matthew Yglesias, that our system is doomed?<br /><br />http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/03/06/american-democracy-r-i-p/Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01874452998675783899noreply@blogger.com