The thing is we should argue for proportional representation as a "good thing" in itself. It increases people's direct democratic influence and I believe this is an end in itself.
People who rest their claims for PR on things like "it will increase participation" (turns out it does) or "it will get us less corrupt politicians" (maybe it doesn't) are risking having the rug pulled out with results like that. I remember a while back an argument with someone convinced that PR would increase a countries economic success because people would have more direct control over which party ran the economy. (Now I don't think even if the electorate had all studied economics at LSE they would be able to well predict which party would be best for the economy... they can vote for the one they *think* is but they've no good chance of being right.)
PR is the right thing to do because the result it gives is closer to the result desired by the people voting.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2013-10-29 10:06 pm (UTC)The thing is we should argue for proportional representation as a "good thing" in itself. It increases people's direct democratic influence and I believe this is an end in itself.
People who rest their claims for PR on things like "it will increase participation" (turns out it does) or "it will get us less corrupt politicians" (maybe it doesn't) are risking having the rug pulled out with results like that. I remember a while back an argument with someone convinced that PR would increase a countries economic success because people would have more direct control over which party ran the economy. (Now I don't think even if the electorate had all studied economics at LSE they would be able to well predict which party would be best for the economy... they can vote for the one they *think* is but they've no good chance of being right.)
PR is the right thing to do because the result it gives is closer to the result desired by the people voting.