As with the chicken and egg, the problem is that we're using a fundamentally mistaken frame of analysis which demands of us the false choice between either chicken or egg. The real answer, of course, is that they exist in a system together: every egg laid by a chicken is a slight mutation from "chicken" towards something else.
Same goes for Switzerland. The Swiss' institutions evolved over time to drive them less crazy, and less-crazy people create less-crazy institutions. It also helps to not have apocalyptic wars devastate your territory, and it helps even more for those wars to happen just next door to give your citizens a clear and present sense of urgency to stay sane, not to mention pride in having stayed sane the whole while.
But the point is, institutions and the public co-evolve. The public is the chicken - the creature - and the institutions are the egg that it lays (there's a joke in there somewhere about the Founders laying a huge one with FPTP). We don't need to keep wasting time admiring the problem here, because the answer is clear: Like any mutation, a concerted effort to implement targeted institutional reforms can help introduce a competitive advantage.
And like evolution, it's not always sexy! As we've seen in this forum, some constantly insist on the absolute perfect set of electoral or multiparty or other institutional reforms. They demand a silver bullet: even if they're outlining several reforms, they want the package to be perfect. But the reality is, no package is perfect, just like no mutation is guaranteed to produce the evolution you want. The answer should be for us to focus on how to drive towards that evolution, not on how perfect or imperfect any one reform should be.
In case the subtext got lost here, what I'm saying is not to get too down on the future for RCV, or AV, or MMD, or anything else for that matter; and especially, not to obsess about the details. Yes, there are drawbacks, and they're real and painful. But the gestalt is that RCV in particular has the best shot -- name ID, track record*, etc -- at destabilizing the inherently polarizing two-party equilibrium and giving us a glide path towards a more sane evolution. We should always be open to alternatives, of course, but the conversation shouldn't narrowly focus on whether this or that multiparty reform prevents this or that electoral failure.
*In actual elections, not your dumb co-op board which has completely different fundamentals from national elections - namely, low information, low salience, low impact on policy.
Rather, we should evaluate on the heuristic "gives us a glide path towards a more sane political evolution". Does the mutation give us a better chicken, or not?
From The Comments: Swizz Politix
From The Comments: Swizz Politix
From The Comments: Swizz Politix
I don't think the chicken-egg conundrum of Swiss politics has to be a debilitating paradox for us.
As with the chicken and egg, the problem is that we're using a fundamentally mistaken frame of analysis which demands of us the false choice between either chicken or egg. The real answer, of course, is that they exist in a system together: every egg laid by a chicken is a slight mutation from "chicken" towards something else.
Same goes for Switzerland. The Swiss' institutions evolved over time to drive them less crazy, and less-crazy people create less-crazy institutions. It also helps to not have apocalyptic wars devastate your territory, and it helps even more for those wars to happen just next door to give your citizens a clear and present sense of urgency to stay sane, not to mention pride in having stayed sane the whole while.
But the point is, institutions and the public co-evolve. The public is the chicken - the creature - and the institutions are the egg that it lays (there's a joke in there somewhere about the Founders laying a huge one with FPTP). We don't need to keep wasting time admiring the problem here, because the answer is clear: Like any mutation, a concerted effort to implement targeted institutional reforms can help introduce a competitive advantage.
And like evolution, it's not always sexy! As we've seen in this forum, some constantly insist on the absolute perfect set of electoral or multiparty or other institutional reforms. They demand a silver bullet: even if they're outlining several reforms, they want the package to be perfect. But the reality is, no package is perfect, just like no mutation is guaranteed to produce the evolution you want. The answer should be for us to focus on how to drive towards that evolution, not on how perfect or imperfect any one reform should be.
In case the subtext got lost here, what I'm saying is not to get too down on the future for RCV, or AV, or MMD, or anything else for that matter; and especially, not to obsess about the details. Yes, there are drawbacks, and they're real and painful. But the gestalt is that RCV in particular has the best shot -- name ID, track record*, etc -- at destabilizing the inherently polarizing two-party equilibrium and giving us a glide path towards a more sane evolution. We should always be open to alternatives, of course, but the conversation shouldn't narrowly focus on whether this or that multiparty reform prevents this or that electoral failure.
*In actual elections, not your dumb co-op board which has completely different fundamentals from national elections - namely, low information, low salience, low impact on policy.
Rather, we should evaluate on the heuristic "gives us a glide path towards a more sane political evolution". Does the mutation give us a better chicken, or not?