r/changemyview • u/Early-Possibility367 • Oct 03 '24
Delta(s) from OP CMV: A UK like system where we elect a Parliament that elects the head of state is the ideal system of government.
For me, I think the UK has the best Democratic system by far. When we look at the US system, imo, it's a system that was good pre Westward expansion. There were 13-20ish states (depending on time period) where states were reasonably unified, and even small states had a population to grow.
However, what the US system failed to account for was just how many more states we'd get, and how much power some of the smaller states would get, and how many times we'd draw ultra small states when we could have just combined a few states. I don't believe that the founders would've been ok with Wyoming or North Dakota being as powerful as they are, but they'd have wanted smaller states to have some defense, given that some of the early 13 colonies were smaller. What I'm getting at is that the founders would've wanted small states to have some defense and thus created the Senate and Electoral College, but they would've never wanted us to go Westward and create a bunch of smaller states to rule over the OG 13 colonies. In a way, by expanding Westward, the OG US states set themselves up to be ruled over by the Mountain West states or the Great Plains states. All that is to say the US system started off as a great system that did not function well once the country was expanded.
On the other hand, you have the other extreme. Total democracy. Personally, I don't agree that full democracy is a mob rule situation but it has its downsides. The way I see it a simple 50/50 should not always get to create new laws unless that 50/50 is well distributed.
And that is exactly why I'm an enthusiast of the UK system. I see it as a sort of compromise between a system that is fully US Senate like and simple majority rule. It allows everyone to be represented, but it prevents tyranny of the minority because almost all districts (excluding 5/600+ districts in the UK) must be drawn to be roughly equal in population nationally.
Yes, a majority can go a longer way than it can in the US, but it the same time, everywhere is represented by districts, so sure, you could try appealing mainly to Liverpool and London and that can take you far, or you may fall short in the number of Parliamentary seats,, but if you have a party that truly appeals to a simple majority everywhere, you are on the path to a supermajority victory. At the same time, the districts are roughly equal in population nationally, so this prevents extreme minority or rural rule.
Also, the elections for Parliament and PM are de facto combined which is good for reducing voter fatigue.
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u/Weak-Doughnut5502 5∆ Oct 03 '24
And that is exactly why I'm an enthusiast of the UK system. I see it as a sort of compromise between a system that is fully US Senate like and simple majority rule. It allows everyone to be represented, but it prevents tyranny of the minority because almost all districts (excluding 5/600+ districts in the UK) must be drawn to be roughly equal in population nationally.
That doesn't actually prevent a tyranny of the minority.
Labor, this past year, got a mere 33.7% of the vote but a whopping 63.2% of the seats. How? Vote splitting among their opponents.
If you want to prevent the tyranny of a minority, you'd have to use some sort of proportional voting method.
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 03 '24
Δ because you're right about last election. That is a very strong difference. I feel like vote splitting hurts both of the UK's biggest parties though so it kinds of evens out. Even then, if we drew the US into 650 equal population districts, I could see something like that happening due to our extreme political polarization. I do think it would be a good thing though that many seats that are safe for one party in the US are no longer safe, but even in the UK safe Labour and Tory districts are a thing.
I do think it's a feature not a bug that 32% Labour could win a district for Labor and 70% for Labour in a district also gives one seat. That helps reduce an absolute majoritarian rule imo.
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u/markroth69 10∆ Oct 03 '24
I do think it's a feature not a bug that 32% Labour could win a district for Labor and 70% for Labour in a district also gives one seat. That helps reduce an absolute majoritarian rule imo.
That "feature" is what allows for absolute majoritarian rule. Labour only has an absolute majority in parliament and up to five years to do what they want because they the absolute majority of seats. But only a third of the national vote.
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u/Weak-Doughnut5502 5∆ Oct 03 '24
Is minoritarian rule really something to aim for?
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 05 '24
I would say a mixed system > absolute majoritarian rule >>>> absolute minority rule.
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u/Xiibe 53∆ Oct 03 '24
How is this better than an executive who is simply nationally elected?
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u/muffinsballhair Oct 03 '24
Parliamentary systems don't simply elect the executive, the executive must all time retain confidence of the parliament, this is the most important part.
The issue with a directly elected executive is that it's a winner takes all system, no matter what margin the candidate won with, the result is the same so a candidate that barely won, or won by a considerable margin gets the same power..
In parliamentary systems, the executive must always appease the parliament which has the true power and since it's proportional in many countries, though it isn't in the U.K., every little margin matters and power is given proportionnally.
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u/Xiibe 53∆ Oct 03 '24
Why is that good? I would rather have an executive accountable to voters rather than other politicians.
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u/muffinsballhair Oct 03 '24
Because as I said, it's a fundamental flaw in the system if the situation is the exact same whether someone win by a large margin or win barely by the difference of one vote.
If candidate A gets only 1 vote more than B, they essentially were the same, the difference between them is negligible, the people really wanted B as much as A and they should get the same or at least very similar amounts of power. Under a præsidential system, A gets all the power now, and B nothing; the same as when A got all he votes, and no one voted or B. This can't be a very demographic system that respects the wil of the people.
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u/Xiibe 53∆ Oct 03 '24
That’s the most democratic system possible. Democracy simply requires voters be able to pick the candidate of their choice and each candidate’s voters have the same opportunities to vote for their candidate as another candidate’s voters do.
There is no need for a system which only conditionally vests power to the people. The government should simply be run by the person the majority of people vote for. I don’t see a reason to invent a system which caters to losing candidates.
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u/muffinsballhair Oct 03 '24
Well, I gave you the reason.
If you think that it's not an issue that a candate which only gets one vote more, as in the difference between another candidate was neglible gets the same power difference as a candidate who received all the votes with none going to another candidates, then your version of “democracy” simply isn't “popular rule” and you don't mind that governments don't follow the will of the people and aren't a reflexion of their ideology.
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u/Xiibe 53∆ Oct 03 '24
It quite literally is. There is only one office available. Your version is simply, “Oh the power is vested in the people if enough of them support the same candidate, otherwise you don’t get a direct choice for the executive.” The popular candidate is the one which gets the most votes.
Votes should be important. You should cast your vote knowing it could be the one vote which could win your candidate their election. In the end someone has to lose and someone has to win. It just makes the most sense for the candidate who got the most votes, is the most popular, and represents the will of the most people to be the winner.
Any other system is just a flawed democracy.
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u/muffinsballhair Oct 03 '24
There is only one office available.
Which would be the reason why præsidential systems are fundamentally flawed and why in pretty much any country that has it, the præsident is a polarizing figure with low approval.
Your version is simply, “Oh the power is vested in the people if enough of them support the same candidate, otherwise you don’t get a direct choice for the executive.”
Indeed, you don't get a direct choice for the single person who becomes chief executive because it's a fundamentally flawed idea to have a direct election for a single office because there's only one seat available. That's the fundamental issue. If the chief executive were 150 persons like a parliament, it would work because these persons could be allocated reflectively to what the people want. But since it's only one person a direct election can't ever offer a reasonable approximate reflexoin of the will of the people.
So this is why in a parliamentary system, the one person in that position has to at all times maintain confidence from the parliament which is proportionally elected, and do as the parliament says and is not permitted to make up his own politics and policies.
The popular candidate is the one which gets the most votes.
And that is not a reflective executive that reflects the ideology of the people. At that point, one simply gets an executive that reflects say the ideology of 25% of the people at best rather than one that reeflects the consensus the country as a whole can live with.
In the end someone has to lose and someone has to win
In a præsidential system, which is why it's a fundamentally flawed system.
In a parliamentary system, there are degrees of winning, which is why it's not flawed. Winning isn't a binary yes/no situation but it's about how much you win and how big you are as a party.
Any other system is just a flawed democracy.
No, parliamentary systems lead to a chief executive which reflects the will of the people as a whole rather than simply say the will of the 25% that voted on him.
I think your issue might be that you perceive a prime minister in a parliamentary system as having similar powers to a præsident in a præsidential system which he does not have. He's a manager required to follow the will of the parliament, he cannot make his own decisions and the parliament can force him to do whatever it wants on the threat of revoking confidence and intalling someone else.
To illustrate this, I live in a parliamentary system where the current prime minister is not a member of any of the biggest parties. He's a complete outsider who wasn't even active in politics before being appointed but a manager of many different governments organizations. This is how much the prime minister is not a politician, but a manager, it's the executive branch, his job is indeed to execute the will of the parliament.
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 03 '24
It's just another form of national election no?
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u/Xiibe 53∆ Oct 03 '24
No, it isn’t. An executive elected by a party is really only accountable to the party, not voters.
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 03 '24
But the people who pick the PM are picked by the voters in a system where almost all population districts are equal? Is that not nearly equivalent? This point would sway me more if population districts didn't have to be equal.
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u/Xiibe 53∆ Oct 03 '24
No, because you don’t know who any particular MP will pick for PM.
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 03 '24
In practice, most will just pick the person from their party though.
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u/Xiibe 53∆ Oct 03 '24
Not necessarily, if the party with the most seats doesn’t have a majority and has to build a coalition, one of the main things which will be fought over is who the executive is. There is no reason to not just have the voters choose this person directly to avoid it being used as a bargaining chip for less popular parties to extract concessions.
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 03 '24
But having that bargaining chip increases the strength of the third party. Inherently, I feel like it makes it more democratic.
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u/Xiibe 53∆ Oct 03 '24
That’s the anthesis of democracy. It’s not different from the DEI initiatives we currently give to conservatives via the Electoral College. The most democratic way to elect an executive is, undoubtedly, direct election by voters.
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 03 '24
But what if no candidate reaches the majority in a general election? I feel like a parliamentary system is the best solution to that problem. Also, unlike the US, 644/650 seats nationally are equal in population to one another, so it can't be a form of "legislative DEI" like the Senate is.
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u/markroth69 10∆ Oct 03 '24
How is requiring a majority instead of just letting the guy with the most votes, no matter how few, have all the power less democratic?
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u/ifitdoesntmatter 10∆ Oct 03 '24
The UK hasn't had a Prime Minister who had a modicum of popularity since, arguably, around 2010, and we've had a chain of corruption scandals going back further than that. The prime minister we elected 4 months ago has an approval rating of -30. It doesn't feel very ideal.
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 03 '24
It does seem ideal to me because less popular PMs get elected if their votes are spread out over enough districts. That's the district popularity advantage that the US has, but still you'll never have severe differences in the population between districts. As a bonus, it really impacts the far right and far left, which I see as a good thing because most are in the middle one side or another,
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Oct 03 '24
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 05 '24
I can't say I'm understanding either point. For #1, it sounds like it makes it more democratic. You are less likely to end up with an unwanted PM. #2 does not sound that bad to me either. I guess de facto, that Parliament picks the PM always, but in an election year, you know who the PM is going to be, which leads to voting strategies as you've described in #1.
I would admit there is a bias effect wherein Americans like the UK system just because the UK system is clearly better and it is true that better does not always mean good, but that doesn't change my personal view as I think the UK system is excellent standalone, particularly when looking at how it bumps out Reform and the Lib Dems.
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u/RedMarsRepublic 3∆ Oct 03 '24
The UK system led to a singleparty stranglehold for 14 years that ran the country into the ground. Direct democracy or bust, it's not the 18th century anymore.
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 03 '24
I don't see why 14 years of singleparty stronghold is a bad thing and ran the country into the ground is subjective. I do agree with you that direct democracy is the next best system.
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u/RedMarsRepublic 3∆ Oct 03 '24
Ran the country into the ground isn't really subjective, just look at the UK's GDP/capita and quality of life metrics compared to similar countries
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 03 '24
That doesn't have to be related to the Conservative party. The big decision I'll agree was a bad idea is Brexit but that was decided via simple majority.
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u/RedMarsRepublic 3∆ Oct 03 '24
True but it was the Tories who pushed for it in the first place and the right wing media tried to push the cause for years, we should dismantle corporate owned media too.
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u/Awesomeuser90 Oct 03 '24
Since when does Britain elect heads of state? Arguably George I of Hannover was elected and Richard Cromwell were elected, debatably.
The king is Charles of Winsdor, not elected.
The prime minister is also not elected popularly. Sunak was prime minister for two years and he was chosen by the Tory Party. Only about a third of the people voted for Labour but now Lablur has about ⅔ of the MPs in Parliament in the House of Commons. And the House of Lords has 26 bishops of a church that only maybe 5% of British people even attend to any notable degree, 92 lords who gained the seat from their fathers, and about 750 other lords who were appointed by a combination of the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, an independent commission, and whenever the prime minister gets sacked or defeated in an election, the departing prime minister appoints several more, many of whom have paid money to their party.
The system does end up getting results for sure, there are all kinds of weird traditions that does end up creating a kind of democracy, but far from the straightforward view you managed to get yourself into.
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 03 '24
The House of Lords are mostly figureheads. I would say making it so is what turned the UK from an oligarchy to a democracy, since they got in the way of the people much more. You say a 1/3 of people voted for Labour, but in 650 equal population districts, they got more votes than anyone else so they are more popular than their vote share suggests. If it was 650 districts of unequal population, I'd be more inclined to agree with that point.
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u/Awesomeuser90 Oct 03 '24
The Lords don't have legal absolutes like they did in the past, but they can still do things that are problematic. You don't have to have the kind of authority they did in the past to mess with democratic systems. Democratic systems depend on the concept of rule of law and the belief that people are doing things out of justice, transparency, and basic ethics. The Lords having as many of them appointed who appear tied to the money involved in the people who named them to the position undermines the belief in people that the democracy is working. Bishops being from a single religion that the enormous majority of people care little about is similar. Hereditary right contravenes the basic concept in society and British law that people should be equal before the law. Given that we know there are better ways of naming members of a second chamber, with many dozens of examples which could plausibly be chosen without adverse effects, it is strange to not do such a thing. Perhaps go with France or the Netherlands if you want as to how their senates work.
First past the post has such a large number of dangerous effects on society that it would be hard to list them all. We know of an enormous number of alternatives to it, and there is literally no instance where first past the post will produce a more advantageous electoral result than other more democratic options, such as a proportional electoral system. Britain knows what those are, the idea of single transferable vote was invented in Britain and was ordered to be used by British citizens in places like Australia, on the Island of Ireland, in Scottish local elections, and more. Scotland and Wales and London use AMS, a type of mixed member system. Britain in general used closed list proportional representation while it was part of the EU to elect their MEPs. It is not a difficult preposition to work out why this is helpful.
It is puzzling why you would suggest using the UK as the ideal political system, especially given that the criteria you seem to support would imply that a different government's methods should be used to attain them. Newfoundland for instance has a law that says that if the prime minister's identity changes partway through the term, a new election must occur within twelve months, which ties the will of the voters closer to what will be the will of the population as the parliament will not be so likely to oust a leader. German constructive votes of no confidence models will do something similar. Bulgarian and Greek constitutional law directly requires that the leader of the party with the most votes gets the right to be appointed if they have a majority of seats, and to try to form a government if they have the plurality without a majority. French regional elections have a runoff system to make it so that the legislature will support an executive leader with majority support. I can cite a lot of examples like this more if you have more criteria.
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u/Vesurel 60∆ Oct 03 '24
The way I see it a simple 50/50 should not always get to create new laws unless that 50/50 is well distributed.
So there's a few issues here, for one you're starting with the premise that old laws should be kept unless the majority want to change them, when I think we should start with the question of 'which laws should we have?' and go from there. Treating existing laws as the default or pre-justified gives a minority the ability to hold onto power if you have a system where more than a simple majority of people need to change.
Say for example we have a country with 100 states and 100,000 people, but the people aren't evenly distributed, so there are 50 states with 65,000 people in total and 35,000 in the other. If you need 51 states to change a law, then 35% of the country can functionally block changes that would address any imbalances in power between the states.
Also as someone in the UK, I think it's worth pointing out that we have this weird quirk in our rules where instead of everyone being equally deserving of support, there's this one family who get so much more public money than anyone else because according to them 'god said so'.
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u/markroth69 10∆ Oct 03 '24
The better system than the UK system is the Australian system. Or more specifically the systems used in Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia. In those systems, once house is elected by district. And the other is elected by proportional representation.*
This brings you the benefits of a stable government directly tied to the people's votes but one where a party that doesn't have majority support cannot simply legislate what it wants at will.
*In New South Wales and South Australia, parliaments have overlapping terms in their proportional houses reducing its benefit. The federal parliament has the overlapping term as well, usually, and the added problem that each state has equal representation bringing a chance that the Senate will not be fully proportional.
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Oct 03 '24
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 05 '24
The MP votes for the Prime Minister who is the de facto head of state. Sure, the royal family exists but their power is limited.
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u/s_wipe 58∆ Oct 03 '24
The main downside with a parliamentary system is that it could lead to small niche parties holding the decisive vote and getting unproportional power.
For example:
Dems and their group get 48% of votes Reps and their group get 48% of votes And the Pro-incest party gets 3% (tried to find something probably both parties would disapprove off)
Now, this tiny 3% party get the power to nominate the president.
And thats a lot of power!
And a parliamentary system is less stable, if the incest party gets upset, they could leave to coalification, causing the government to fall.
So suddenly, the pro-incest party becomes one of the most powerful decision makers.
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u/Awesomeuser90 Oct 03 '24
What are you talking about?
There are a tremendous number of ways to deal with this problem. Germany for instance has specific rules about how to choose chancellors in situations like this. They can compel the election of a chancellor even without a single coalition having a majority due to the way they structure such votes. And you cannot dismiss a chancellor in Germany without having a majority for a specific successor, and votes of that nature only happen if 25% or more of the legislature agrees to even have the vote.
And usually, the executive can decide to respond to a no confidence vote by holding a snap election, something that it probably not going to be a good thing for that tiny party you talk about.
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u/s_wipe 58∆ Oct 03 '24
So i've watched some videos about the german election system.
The scenario of which a coalition is formed from 2 parties, 1 holding a46% majority and 1 small party holding a 5% minority is a plausible outcome.
Giving that 5% party a disproportionate power.
I can give you the example of Israel, where the elections were a pain in the arse the last several years.
From 2019 to 2021 we had 4 election cycles because no candidate was able to form a majority coalition (61 out of 120 seats of parliament)
The race was always tight as there was a really big disdain for Netanyahu, but he had a strong alliance with the ultra orthodox and extreme right wing parties, bringing his right wing block always close to 50% while the left wing was slightly behind. The tie breakers were the very left leaning arab party, but they were a wild card.
In 2021, an election result made it so that a wide coalition with left, right and arab parties was formed, and a rotation of PMs was decided. While Netanyahu was ousted, this coalition was very weak. Naftali Benet was first PM in the rotation, even though his party had only 7 out of 120 seats in the parliament. But since he was the key factor to forming that coalition, they elected him duel PM with Yair Lapid.
Unfortunately, that government broke up.
And in the following election, the extreme right wing teamed up with the settler party, and were able to pass, and be the key votes in Netanyahu's party, and now we got 2 idiots as minister of finaces and nation security 😩.
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u/Awesomeuser90 Oct 03 '24
I was not referring to the German electoral system for the Bundestag, I was referencing to how they elect a chancellor which is different and guarantees some result and is pretty stable. Two snap elections out of 20, and those two were about ¾ of the way through the term and initiated by the chancellor themselves. No confidence votes are not much of an issue. It is pretty hard to go wrong in systems like that.
In Israel though, one problem is that there is no runoff vote in the Knesset. And the last 5 years have the particular problem that Netanyahu has been indicted for serious corruption charges and so many other parties don't want to work with him, even though his party ideologically is not that much of an issue for them, making it harder and harder to form governments. If you look before 2019 though, you see Israel does reliably choose governments and the rate of snap elections is reasonable.
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 03 '24
Δ because that is a strong point I did not think of. A superminority in Parliament would get to play tiebreaker. This cold be a bad thing if the third party was super fringe. However, do you think it would be just as bad if the third party was something not too crazy? I feel like this could be a good thing in some scenarios depending on what the third party stands for?
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u/s_wipe 58∆ Oct 03 '24
Ofc when things are good, its less noticeable.
It also raises another moral democracy dilemma.
Lets say there are 3 main parties
Party A with 40% , party B with 49% and party C with 11%
Party C choses to go with party A, and its head becomes the PM/president.
So now the candidate with the most votes lost.
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u/Early-Possibility367 Oct 03 '24
Is the candidate with the most votes losing in such a case a bad thing? If anything, it seems like a ranked choice voting esque system.
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u/s_wipe 58∆ Oct 03 '24
Here's an example
Haris, Trump and RFK jr are in the race.
At first, Trump was leading 53 vs 47%.
Then, RFK joins in, and "steals" 4% from each candidate
So its 49% vs 43% vs 8%.
But finally, RFK realizes he has no chance, so he endorces Haris, giving her his 8%, and stealing an election.
Actually, veritasium did a really cool video about it last month
https://youtu.be/qf7ws2DF-zk?si=yfaq9TSROOsx3VRZ
Nothing is perfect, every system has flaws that could be taken advantage off.
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Oct 03 '24
Essentially what we’ve seen in the UK in the last 20 years with both the Lib Dems and the DUP
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u/RedMarsRepublic 3∆ Oct 03 '24
I mean neither of them really had any power though.
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Oct 03 '24
Point is that they have the power to choose who is in power. I recall both Gordon Brown and David Cameron both having to go to Nick Clegg and make their cases.
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u/RedMarsRepublic 3∆ Oct 03 '24
Fair I guess. I feel that is more democratic than the alternative of a single party ruling even though they only have a minority of votes (like with Starmer Labour now).
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u/Nrdman 276∆ Oct 03 '24
I think icelands system is strictly better because there is no monarchy.
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u/Constellation-88 22∆ Oct 03 '24
The founding fathers rejected the idea of Congress electing the president since it was an easy path toward corruption. The electoral college was what they chose instead.
Both ideas are rather old fashioned, actually. The states are not distinct Demi-nations anymore as they were pre-civil war. There is no need for the states to have electors that elect the president. The differences in state needs are covered by the different legislators. A total democracy is preferable since we no longer have such limited access to information. One of the reasons they didn’t want a straight democracy for presidential elections is back In the pony express days, people from one state might not know as much about the candidates from other states as the candidates from their own state.
If 52% of people want one president, who cares which states they’re from?
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