Tag: Proportional representation

19th September 2012

If FPTP can be this bad, imagine what PR will do to India! Total Balkanisation.

FPTP gives at least SOME chance for majority governments to get established. PR gives no chance at all for that to happen.

That means governments become more confused, confounded and impotent. We get weak governments that can't deliver anything.

Now hold this thought. Let me take a little detour and come back to this.

I have been talking to some people in India's planning commission over the past few days and notice that the planning commission is beginning to propose some GOOD ideas – for the FIRST TIME EVER.

The speech that MMS gave while announcing reforms was based on a paper prepared by Arun Maira who has extensive private sector experience and has been broadly talking sensible things for some time. Maira headed BCG in India and is therefore skilled in strategic analysis. I'm astonished that the planning commission managed to get such a person. Not since Shenoy have we had a sensible planning commission member. [Actually, let me hold off on calling Maria "sensible" till I read his book, Remaking India – One Country, One Destiny and find out to what extent he is thinking on the right lines.]

It was Maira's work that MMS was referring to when he said:

The Plan for the first time introduces alternative scenarios.
Scenario one is called “Strong Inclusive growth”. It presents what is possible if the policy actions outlined in the Plan are substantially implemented. One can expect a number of virtuous cycles to start operating, leading to positive results on both growth and inclusion. This is the scenario we should aim for.
Scenario two is called “insufficient action”. It describes a state of partial action with weak implementation. The virtuous cycles that reinforce growth in Scenario I, will not kick in, and growth can easily slow down to 6 to 6.5 percent. Inclusiveness will also suffer. This is where we will end up if we make only half-hearted efforts and slip in implementation. It is my sincere hope that we do not do so.
Scenario three is called “policy logjam”. It reflects a situation where for one reason or another, most of the policies needed to achieve Scenario 1 are not taken. If this continues for any length of time, vicious cycles begin to set in and growth could easily collapse to about 5 percent per year, with very poor outcomes on inclusion. I urge everyone interested in the country’s future to understand fully the implications of this scenario. They will quickly come to an agreement that the people of India deserve better than this.

I'm sure the 12th plan is full of miserable policies (most of the planning commission is still socialist), but at least I'll try to read the document now. We only got a lot of garbage from the planning commission for 60 years. We may have something (partially) worth reading, finally, from its portals.

My experience with planning commission is extensive and unhappy. I won't go into details here but let me just say that it was the most socialist organisation one can imagine, even in 2000. I'm glad that some reform oriented thinking is creeping in.

But that's not the point I'm making in this post. So back to the main point.

Mamata Banerjee is quitting UPA. The coalition is teetering. She wants to create a POLICY LOGJAM.

One of the greatest economics illiterates of India, Mamata is determined to block India's success.

Not content with destroying West Bengal (along with the communists), she is now determined to destroy India as well.

This should ring a CLEAR WARNING (even for "tubelights") about the dangers of PR.

Had India been following PR, we would have been unable even to have the 1991 reforms. India would have by now splintered (or be in the process of splintering) into many pieces.

I should know. By early 1990s I was working as Joint Secretary/ Addl. Secretary in Assam and what had become clear was that INDIA HAD NO MONEY. India had no money to pay government officials, teachers, even defence. It was being bankrupted at an alarming rate. And insurgency in Assam and NE was becoming out of control.

Had the 1991 reforms not come in, and some credit extended to state governments, the states would have gone bankrupt.

At that stage, the North East would have almost certainly split from India. Like USSR split into its constituent parts, India would have gone back to some form of pre-1947 disorder.

Let us all remember one thing: Without a strong police and armed force, India can't survive in one piece for long. India is prone to Balkanisation (it is after all a sub-continent). That's a basic message every policy maker should thoroughly understand. It was first suggested by Chanakya. When the Mauryan empire forgot this lesson, India splintered and became vulnerable to all kinds of foreign attacks.

Although the chances of India's Balkanisation appear low today, they were VERY HIGH in the early 1990s, and were getting higher. How can you run a country without ANY money? Wild inflation would have come in, and in the unrest, the country would have splintered.

With proportional representation India will Balkanise faster than you can blink your eyes.

Sardar Patel was in favour of a STRONG steel frame for India (IAS, etc.) and that principle must ALWAYS be followed in India. India' constituent assembly also deliberately picked a quasi-federal system with an exceptionally strong centre. For the same reason. India is not yet ready for total federalism. It needs to operate a tight ship for at least another century, and then more powers can be given to the states. (That having been said, local government must be very significantly strenghthened).

We need a government that has a clear mandate.

FPTP is not perfect. If socialist parties gain majorities, they can destroy India, too. But PR is guaranteed to paralyse and destroy India.

FPTP can create a "policy logjam". PR can entirely split the log-raft (India) into component logs.

9th September 2012

The tyranny of democracy – why utilitarianism is wrong and the USA Bill of Rights is right

This short video (must watch) affirms that a government can take away private property only for public use (and that must explicitly be public, not benefit any private individual or restricted group of individuals).

Benthmite utilitarianism is useful, but only up to a point. The moment its conclusions encroach on liberty, utilitarianism is dangerous. FTI's policy framework explicitly gives cost-benefit analysis a lower level of power in decision making than liberty. It becomes relevant only after liberty has been protected.

This video also affirms that majorities quickly tend to become tyrannies unless strongly restrained by a constitution. It affirms that Constitutions must be SHORT, CRISP AND TO THE POINT: and firmly prevent government encroachments on liberty. No qualifications. No ifs and buts. No "subject to the law". The law MUST NOT violate liberty. Period.

(The Indian Constitution, by the way, is a total mess – but I don't hear people like Shailesh Saraf/ Arvind Kejriwal/ Anna Hazare, etc. talking about the destruction of liberties in our Constitution. For these people democracy is the main goal of a government. For me liberty is.)

The day democracy is seen as a tool for decision-making within the confines of a strong constitution, we'll stop unnecessary fights regarding "FPTP/PR/presidential" etc. systems. The way we elect representatives is far less important than what the constitution says and the way our courts defend liberty.

To most people, government seems to be about power. Therefore they want "people's power" or democracy. But that is mistaken. Government is designed SOLELY for the defence of liberty. It is not about power. If a democratic government goes outside this strict bound, then democracy itself must be shunned. It must be reformed. Even overthrown violently, and replaced by a stronger constitutional restriction on the majority.

In this video, Professor Munger reminds us of the difference between democracy and majority rule. Democratic constitutions establish not only the process by which decisions will be made, but also the limits on kind of things can be voted on. This prevents the majority from deciding everything. He warns, however, that these limits on what can be decided democratically have been slowly eroded in American courts of law.
One example of a weakening of limitations on democracy is the Supreme Court ruling in the 2005 case Kelo v. New London. When Miss Kelo refused a private real estate developer’s offer to buy her house in New London, Connecticut, the developer convinced the city council that its citizens would be better off if her house were torn down and condos built in its place. The majority of citizens preferred the greater tax revenue, and the council voted in favor of the developer. After taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court and losing, Miss Kelo lost her property.
According to Professor Munger, the United States Constitution was designed to prevent individuals and their property from falling prey to the “tyranny of the majority,” by defining the domain in which the majority can make decisions. By confusing majority rule with a democratic system, we endanger the freedom of all individuals.

Addendum

Found on Facebook

7th September 2012

The tyranny of democracy: Massive debts for future generations

Recently I discussed the tyranny of democracy and cautioned those who are blindly enamoured with direct democracy (or its proxy: proportional representation).

Democracy has its inevitable tendencies: middle class welfare (median voter theorem), lack of fiscal discipline (always convenient to borrow for one's term of government and let the future generations pay), and never ending intervention by government into our affairs. Everyone wants the government to do this or do that. No one is happy to leave others alone.

Most noticeable across the world today is the tendency of democracies to accumulate MASSIVE AMOUNTS of debt. Buttonwood (in The Economist) has summarised this well. [Does anyone know who is Buttonwood?].

Buchanan thought a lot about these issues. Not many have spent similar time trying to resolve the fundamental problems of democracy. I don't expect Indians to provide such insights, since they are generally unthinking and jump to conclusions.

Extracts from The Economist

For a long time, democracy was a dirty word among political philosophers. One reason was the fear that democratic rule would lead to ruin.
Plato warned that democratic leaders would “rob the rich, keep as much of the proceeds as they can for themselves and distribute the rest to the people”.
James Madison feared that democracy would lead to “a rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property and for any other improper or wicked projects”.
John Adams worried that rule by the masses would lead to heavy taxes on the rich in the name of equality. As a consequence, “the idle, the vicious, the intemperate would rush into the utmost extravagance of debauchery, sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them.”
For a long time, there did not seem to be any limit to the amount democracies could borrow. Creditors have been more patient with democratic governments than with other regimes, probably because the risk of abrupt changes of policy are reduced. But this has postponed the crunch point, rather than eliminated it—and allowed stable democracies to accumulate higher debt, relative to their GDP, than many, more volatile countries ever achieved.
Democracies cannot make foreign lenders extend credit.

3rd September 2012

The tyranny of democracy, and how we can protect liberty

I’ve tried to visualise in a diagram (below) various forms of government and their (likely) effect on individual liberty.

[Click for larger image. Source PPT]

To the extreme left and right are ideal models. Both can work IF certain conditions are met.

1) A constitutional dictator (jinn) who defends the country’s constitution and does not dabble in any unnecessary thing is likely to be the best for defence of life and liberty. However, this is an unlikely outcome, since dictators who will comply with the law simply don’t exist.

2) On the other extreme (right) is direct democracy in which every public decision is made directly by all the people sitting at a single table and deciding everything. Theoretically this sounds enticing (everyone gets an equal voice). However, it is, in practical terms, the worst of all form of government since it will lead to confusion, mob rule, flip-flopping on policy positions, significant focus on redistribution, and potentially the end of all liberty as the country is weakened and annexed by its enemies.

The real choices available are therefore much narrower. We need a strong ruler who defends our liberty, closes debates as quickly as possible, is perceived to be legitimate, and can be thrown out quickly if he turns into a tyrant.

Systems that can do this job competently are forms either of the Westminster or Presidential systems of government.

The Presidential deliberately creates a dictator (bound by the Constitution): the President. In principle, this system should be superior to the FPTP system. And it has worked quite well in the USA. However, there are risks under this system of Presidents who over-reach their power and are not accountable to anyone for four years.

The Westminster FPTP system allows for greater accountability since the Parliament can vote out the government midway through its term (through a vote of no confidence – and provided defections are allowed: I strongly support the freedom of representatives to defect). True, Indira Gandhi short-circuited the parliament and became a dictator. But in general, FPTP systems can change governments more quickly than in any other system (I do advocate reducing the term of India’s governments from five to three, or at least four, years).

It could be argued that PR allows even quicker change in government. Most PR governments are chronically unstable. But an excess of change is a weakness, the tyranny of democracy – which derives from Arrow’s impossibility theorem. And the practicality of electing a PR government – which can take days, even months – makes the change even slower.

We need the right balance between stability, strength, and voice. The FPTP Westminster system comes close to the optimum. It has some properties of constitutional dictatorship but also accountability and capacity to incorporate popular beliefs into public policy (I believe the Upper House in India needs to be reviewed from first principles. We may not really need an Upper House once all things are considered.)

If India ever gets tired of FPTP, it should try the presidential system, not PR. Any form of government that India uses must strengthen its unity, not support divisive forces.

Having said that, I seen no reason to abandon FPTP. Instead, there are simple ways to improve its functioning to give us governments that can better defend our liberty.