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The Forum > Article Comments > Public opinion and democracy > Comments

Public opinion and democracy : Comments

By Max Atkinson, published 3/7/2014

If this makes sense the problem is not that politicians disdain public opinion, but that they ignore community values, which tell us whether and why this opinion counts.

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“… the problem is not that politicians disdain public opinion, but that they ignore community values…”

The whole argument turns on this phrase. But unless the author is going to define the difference between “public opinion” and “community values”, the discussion is vain. Both expressions have in common that they refer to people’s preferences. What do they have in distinction?

The argument is so fluffy that there is no conclusion it couldn’t claim to justify: it’s mere projection.

For example:
“… suppose we were to … [ask …] how the budget might look if members were asked to give priority to community values by acting …. on their own judgment and conscience.”

He then simply assumes they would share his own. Vain speculation on a vain methodology.

He’s talking about the community’s worst habitual amoralists judging their own judgment and conscience. It should be obvious that, in their official capacity they don’t have one: they just follow the leader.
“I always voted at my party’s call
and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.”
HMS Pinafore

And in their personal capacity, there’s no reason whatsoever why we should be forced to obey their mere opinions. The author’s unspoken grounding assumptions are demolished here:
http://economics.org.au/2010/08/unrepresentative-government/
http://economics.org.au/2010/08/no-social-contract/

“Suppose … they were asked to treat all citizens with equal concern and equal respect; this would rule out assumptions that people are poor because they lack character …”

It would also rule out assumptions that some people can be attacked or threatened to force them to hand over the fruits of their labour to fund woolly-thinking intellectuals peddling self-serving self-contradictory justifications for projecting their values onto everyone else.

The author is only showing the universal left wing anti-social fantasy that all wealth rightly belongs in common, or rather to the state, and that it should ideally be distributed equally. He ignores the fact that what he has in mind requires aggression that negates his ethical pretensions, his economic ignorance ignores that it works in practice to distribute wealth *upwards*, and, if carried out consistently, would destroy society and the state.

Fail.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Thursday, 3 July 2014 9:17:40 AM
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…I believe most people hold the view that their involvement in the democratic process, is to be invited in on a periodic basis to vote for team “clown”, or team “Jester”: I am one of those!
Posted by diver dan, Thursday, 3 July 2014 9:22:31 AM
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JKJ: you’re a man of many words!

... Economists need to learn they live in the big world which encompasses the whole spectrum of society. They need to decide whether "they" (as a force), wish to live in a “fair” world or a F#*%*d” world. Isn't the truth closer to the fact, to state that economists actually have the tail of the political process in their hands, not politicians: Thus the GFC and it's implications of abysmal failure, on society, were handed back to the political class as an escape mechanism!
Posted by diver dan, Thursday, 3 July 2014 9:37:18 AM
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JKJ:

...I guess, to distill this line of thinking down to its most undiluted state, Economists continually advertise their wares as “Snake Oil”, and cannot be trusted on any level; thus are relegated (by thinkers), to the “tag” of unreliable, dishonorable, dishonest and untrustworthy, in the extreme, and so remain inexorably entwined with their political peers, all of them peering out of the same basket of crooks!
Posted by diver dan, Thursday, 3 July 2014 10:01:50 AM
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<< the problem is not that politicians disdain public opinion, but that they ignore community values, which tell us whether and why this opinion counts>>

What I find even more off putting is that our public broadcast services [the ABC, SBS & now increasingly NITV] increasing disdain public opinion and seek to push their own agendas.
Posted by SPQR, Thursday, 3 July 2014 10:09:39 AM
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This story of "social contract" brings to mind the story of the wolf and the lamb - http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19994/19994-h/19994-h.htm#Page_42

What social contract could there be between the wolf and the lamb? The wolf is a predator, which eats the lamb for no other reason than being hungry - and so do politicians order us around because they like it and they can, not because they have any moral right to do so.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 3 July 2014 3:37:10 PM
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The list of issues in which the two majors are seriously out of step with public opinion is getting longer all the time. Substantial majorities support abortion on demand, same-sex marriage, legalisation of cannabis, action on climate change, subsidised health care and education, increased social spending and higher corporate taxes. Support for voluntary assisted euthanasia is in the stratosphere - regularly polling at about 85%+.

Yet governments come and governments go and all these issues remain stubbornly untouchable.

Apart from the well-documented pressures brought to bear on the political system by mostly corporate wealth, the other major problem is the type of person who goes into politics in the first place. If you look at the background of politicians, they are mostly high-achieving, socially conservative personalities from privileged backgrounds, who worked in a well-paid, highly traditional profession before entering politics, e.g. law, medicine, economics. The minority with less privileged upbringings are usually high-achieving individuals who have followed a very conservative path to rise above their humble beginnings.

The combination of high achiever personalities, conservative outlook and privileged backgrounds creates an insular and tribal political culture - one that has little interest in majority realities.

Moderate achievers from humble backgrounds, who think laterally and creatively, and are empathetic to wider social conditions, just don't go into politics. As a rule, the few who do don't last long.
Posted by Killarney, Thursday, 3 July 2014 5:43:25 PM
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Let's imagine for one moment that MPs from Party X are invited to submit their own views and conclusions, and that this could be done in a reasonable period of time in a reasonably fair manner. How many of those who disagreed with the party line would achieve preselection for the next election, do you suppose?

Governing in times of peace and prosperity is more or less a no-brainer. Nobody needs reports or think-tanks or prolonged discussions with MPs in order to work out what needs to be done. The main problem is finding a way to do it that won't result in angry incompetents winning via a protest vote at the next election. That requires careful planning and juggling pay-offs to pressure groups and local electorates, and of course MPs can provide local knowledge to help with that. But your typical local member has no more expertise in running a country of 23 million people than I do; i.e. none.
Posted by Jon J, Thursday, 3 July 2014 5:59:53 PM
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Killarney
You're not public opinion, so how would you know?

max, diver, killarney

I always get a good chuckle from watching statists give a detailed analysis of the many ways in which governmental decision-making is corrupt, unsatisfactory and anti-social, and then after this peroration, come to their inevitable conclusion that the solution to all problems is more political decision-making.
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Thursday, 3 July 2014 7:08:34 PM
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