Can our party pick your brain?

[Michael Allan]

I wonder what Ed and C think?  If a rough consensus forms around the
Transparency Party, then I won't stand in the way of it.  I respect
your efforts, Thomas.

Thomas von der Elbe wrote:
> Mike, we have the same picture in our minds. And it is a fascinating
> and exciting picture and it drives us foreward: A new democracy
> without the current party-system.
> 
> But this is future. What is the next step for now? If we are far in
> the future, there is no need for a party at all. Thats where your
> initial resistance to the party came from, right?

I simply don't believe it can work.  But then I'm an engineer not a
politician, so I could easily be wrong.

> If we come a bit closer to the presence, something like an un-party
> begins to look useful. Still a bit closer, a midwife party starts to
> look useful ...
> 
> All of these dont oppose each other, right? They are just different 
> steps ahead of us.
> 
> Now I would come even closer to something maybe simply called a "new
> type of party".  IMO we dont need to stretch the term "party" to
> much, to still call it this. And we dont need to tell everybody that
> this party is a midwife to it's own and all the other parties
> dissolution ...  thats just to much imo, and not necesarry. There is
> already a lot new stuff for its members to learn.

It's understandably too much.  I wish to emphasize that it is not my
goal.  The dissolution of the party system is not justifiable or
worthy in itself, and I think it would be irresponsible to pursue it.

> > Rohan Jayasekera wrote:
>>> 2. ...then every eligible voter who is not already a party member,
>>> and who desires a voice in what that representative does, will
>>> join the party...
> >
> > Except they needn't join the party to have that voice.
> 
> Not in the traditional way of "joining a party". They would already
> be joining us by simply taking part in our work, i.e. in
> collaborative decision making, i.e. in using our tools.

If we tell them so, we make it more difficult to use the tools.  Many
will look elsewhere for tools that are less burdened by associations
which, to them, will come as unwelcome.  Consider that most
politically active people are members of parties *other* than TP.
Many have interests that are orthogonal to TP,if not opposed.  It
would strike them as odd or even disloyal to use TP's tools.  They
would instead go in search of neutral tools, or set up toolsets under
their own branding.  (You go on to say, "That's the idea."  OK, if
that's what it takes to set up a neutral toolset in my riding, then
I'm with you.)

On the other hand, if you remove all association between the tools and
TP, then it again raises the issue of the purpose and method of TP.

> > Whatever voting facilities the party has (as such), the residents
> > will have the same, or better.

> But secondly, since we are going to mirror their votes, they
> automatically become members of our party. There can be no
> competition of this kind.

At that point, traditional party membership is already so drained of
meaning that the TP can gain nothing from it.  The membership of all
parties (TP included) will have transferred itself to the vote cascade
where the parties are reborn in a new and better form.  In that sense,
it's a kind of Heaven for parties (seriously), and we want to
encourage them to go there. ;-)

> > ... Maybe the un-Party could help to lighten up the revelation
> > with a little wry humour?
> 
> For us it is really a good joke. And still funny after the 20th time
> I think about it. But for people who have not put so much time in
> e-dem, it will take quite a while to understand. You do agree,
> right?

A comic artist could bring the point home quickly, if he had something
like the un-Party as a stage to stand on. :-) In fact, that particular
"wing" of the un-Party (the ironic wing) would have to be run by
artists, because nobody else could do that particular job.  (We might
hope for a budding Bertolt Brecht.)

> > ... The upshot is that the party's voting facilities serve no
> > purpose, and the purpose of the party itself is called into
> > question.

Rohan Jayasekera wrote:
> The traditional parties will try to win back the riding in
> subsequent elections, so I think the Transparency Party / un-Party
> will need to maintain its party-like operations for a while.  Even
> after direct democracy has taken hold in every riding, to formally
> eliminate the party system will, in some countries, require changing
> the national constitution, and there will also be other questions to
> be considered, such as what will be the replacement for the system
> of ridings.

Once the public primary of the riding residents, or the TP (if you
accept it's all the same) has succeeded in predicting an election,
then no official can ever hope to be re-elected except through that
primary.  Given that, it does not matter if she's a Liberal,
Conservative or NDP brand of candidate who wins election, instead of a
TP brand.  The branding makes no difference, because the elected
official will not listen to the party, or to the party members.  She
will listen to the electors.  As every politician knows, "you dance
with them that brought you."

So the party system vanishes.  No constitution has any say in this.
Parties were formed in the 19th century because the public sphere (the
free voice of the electors) could not do the job that democracy
demanded of it, or not do it well enough, without added structural
supports.  So we ended up with an *in*direct form of democracy that
was mediated by a party system.  Some later constitutions have that
system hard-coded as an essential structure; but where it is no longer
essential in fact - no longer even serves a purpose - it can continue
to exist only in form.  I predict that the substance of the party
system will be drawn out and deposited within the primary electoral
and legislative systems of the public sphere, which, being
institutions of the public sphere (free voices), are beyond the reach
of the state and its constitution.  Interestingly the electoral system
of the modern state is sufficient to bring the democratic horse to
water, but not to make it drink.

> > Are we still together? Because I like this very much.
> 
> I certainly am!  I'm still as excited as I was when Kevin introduced
> the Transparency Party to us.

I am too, as long as there is rough consensus.  But I hope to hear
what others think.

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, +1 416-699-9528
http://zelea.com/