The American Dream

5 May 2011

There was an interesting idea mentioned in passing in a discussion on class on this week’s Americana (worth subscribing to IMO) (26 MB mp3). It’s about 11 minutes in, but the discussion is from the start.

Basically, the idea of the American Dream means that working class Americans often vote against their economic interests, because they want policies that will help them “when” they’re better off, and so they paradoxically end up reducing social mobility. This is probably tied to the fact that (partly since class in America is almost purely economic?) almost everyone thinks of themselves as middle class.

False hope — through religion, through promises of wealth (or marrying a prince?) — is the opium of the people.

The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
Workers of the world, unite!

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Why you should vote Yes to AV

3 May 2011

(Assuming you can vote, that is. grumble stupid parents grumble born two months too late grumble….)

I did have 1500 words written here and I still hadn’t finished tearing the No campaign apart, but if you want a long and detailed essay, you can go elsewhere. (See the bottom of this post for reccomendations). So here’s a fairly brief explanation of why First Past the Post (FPTP) sucks, and why the Alternative Vote (AV) is better.

FPTP leads to tactical voting or disenfranchisement

That is, voting for someone you don’t really want to keep someone you loathe out. AV lets you do both: say that you’d rather have your favorite, but still express a preference for the lesser of two evils. For example, if you’re reading this blog there’s a pretty good chance that Labour would have been your first choice in the last election, but in my constituency the only two candidates with a chance of winning were Nick Clegg and $generic_tory. So you’d probably have voted Clegg if you could. Result: either your vote is worthless, or you have to choose between two pretty shit alternatives. FPTP sucks. (Yes, there are circumstances in which tactical voting theoretically makes sense under AV (as in any voting system), but these are rarer, and in practise you’re unlikely to have enough information about everyone else’s preferences for it to be worth the risk of voting tactically.

FPTP lets in people the majority of the electorate would rather keep out

It’s pretty easy, given the right seat, to get elected under FPTP with 40% or less of the vote, if the vote against you is split, even if the remaining 60% would all prefer a particular one of the other candidates to you. This tends to be a particular problem in the UK with Tories getting elected thanks to a splitting of the left-wing vote between Labour and the Lib Dems. That may be less of an issue in the near future, but the problem remains, and it affects all parties both ways to varying degrees in different places. (I suspect it’s a huge problem in Northern Ireland, with two large parties on either side of the intractable divide and a fifth bunch saying “can’t we all just get along?”)

AV is seeeeeeeemples *squeak*

Voting flowchart

Flowchart by Anthony Smith.

AV is slightly more complicated in terms of what you have to do to the ballot paper (although if you just want to vote for one candidate, that’s fine. You should even be able to do it with a cross). Emphasis on slightly. If you can’t understand AV, you probably shouldn’t be allowed near sharp things like pencils. AV’s an awful lot simpler, though, in terms of deciding how to vote.

AV will not help the BNP

Under FPTP, the BNP could concievably get an MP elected with, say, 35% of the vote in one constituency (Caroline Lucas, albeit at the other end of the political spectrum, and probably less widely loathed, got elected with just 31.3% of the vote as a Green in Brighton) by finding a seat where the “not a racist nutter” vote is split more-or-less evenly between the three big parties. Under AV, they’d need 50% of the electorate preferring them to the next candidate. That’s much less likely to happen.

AV will not lead to pandering to BNP voters for second preferences either. (Let’s face it, this happens — for tactical first preferences — at the moment under FPTP). Simply, there are far more Lib Dems’ second preferences to be lost for Labour and the Tories than BNP second preferences to be gained by playing the racism card. Under FPTP, Lib Dems are probably (wild speculation here) less likely to vote tactically than BNPists, as they have more of a chance of election, so there may actually be less to be lost, so more pandering, under FPTP.

AV is a small change

On a national scale, AV will probably produce similar results to FPTP. (Gowers’s essay, linked below, has discussion of predictions (postdictions? alterdictions?) of the results of recent general elections under AV.) It matters on a constituency scale, though, that MPs have genuine support. AV is no more proportional in general than FPTP (a benefit to the Lib Dems is an effect on centrist parties, not small parties in general), so we shouldn’t expect any more hung parliaments or coalitions than we would get under FPTP (Australia, using AV for its House of Commons since forever, has had the same number of hung parliaments as the UK in that time.) AV does not [suffer the defects|have the advantages] (delete as appropriate) of proportional systems such as more power to small parties, more frequent coalitions and weaker government, and a loss of the direct link between 1 MP and 1 constituency.

Effects of a Yes vote

We get AV for future general elections (duh!). The Lib Dems may do slightly better in future (they probably would have historically, being generally preferred by both Tory and Labour voters to the other lot), but they’re in for a caning anyway, and I wouldn’t like to predict how things will go. The left in general will probably do slightly better, since splitting of the vote is generally a bigger problem on the Left than the Right. The prospect of further electoral reform is opened, both because the mood for change has been confirmed and because the Left is generally keener on it than the Right. We shouldn’t expect significantly more coalitions, or a significant change in minor parties’ share of seats (although the Greens, say, may be more electable in the long term). Nick Clegg gets a big smile on his face. Whether each of these is a good thing or not is up to you.

Effects of a No vote

Even if you voted no because you want (say) a proportional system, not AV, that’s not how it will be interpreted, least of all by the Tories. Bye-bye, electoral reform, for at least a generation. Tory governments with minority support are here to stay. David Cameron, George Osborne and the dinosaurs of old New Labour get big smiles on their faces. Again, whether each of these is a good thing or not is up to you.

A final plea

Don’t vote No to spite Nick Clegg. I hate him at least as much as you, but some things are more important. Firstly, to continue the tribal bickering, if you hate Nick Clegg, you probably hate Cameron and Osborne more. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face and give them what they want by voting No. Secondly, rising above the bickering, the results of this referendum will be affecting British politics long after Clegg is as distant a memory as the SDP (look it up) and that funny party broadcast with John Cleese in it. Don’t throw away the next fifty years for someone who’ll be kicked in the teeth and insignificant in four whatever you do.

In summary

  • FPTP is deeply flawed: it elects unpopular candidates and makes people choose between helping someone they like and keeping out someone they hate.
  • AV solves these problems nearly all of the time. It allows you to express your preference honestly without risking getting someone you really don’t like, it makes sure your MP is at worst seen as the lesser of two evils by most of the electorate.
  • AV is simple — the No campaign almost deserves to lose just for their incredibly patronising argument that “it’s too complicated for the proles to understand”.
  • AV will not help the BNP, will probably not increase and may reduce pandering to their supporters.
  • AV is a small step in the right direction. It does not introduce the controversial aspects of proportional systems.
  • A Yes vote makes elections fairer, leaves the prospect of further electoral reform at least no more closed than a “No”, and probably helps the Left and the Lib Dems slightly.
  • A No vote leaves our unfair system in place for at least a generation. This helps the Tories slightly.
  • This is more important than Nick Clegg and don’t you hate the Tories more anyway?

I deliberately haven’t addressed many of the No campaign’s stupid claims — I reccommend the first post linked below for comprehensive rebuttals of most of them, and I’m happy to take particular ones up in the comments if you want to.

Vote Yes to AV on May 5th for a fairer voting system.

Your vote matters. Turnout is going to be low, and young people are more likely to be pro-AV and less likely to vote. Change that, and make sure the result reflects what the country wants, not just what old people want. It’s your future at stake more than theirs.

 
 

Links:

If I come across more, I’ll post them here; feel free to make suggestions in the comments.

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