Politicomaniac

Posts Tagged ‘wealth equality’

Party Funding

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

A fundamental part of any constitution must be the funding mechanism for political activity. Such laws must protect free speech, but prevent those with the deepest pockets having the loudest voices.

I believe that two simple principals must be satisfied for these objectives to be realised.

Firstly, only registered voters should be allowed to donate. No “organisations,” whether trade unions or companies, should be able to donate (although they should be allowed, even encouraged, to circulate details of how to donate among their members, for example.) There could even be a “loophole” for trade unions whereby they can collect & deliver donations for a party; as long as the donations are recorded as from the individual members, counting against their individual allowances.

The second prong must be a limit on the amount an individual can donate per year. This should be enough that parties can actually fund themselves, i.e. in the UK several thousand or even ten thousand pounds, but low enough that an excessively wealthy individual cannot pour millions into a party campaign.

Those with plenty of money may use it to communicate and advertise in favour of their own interests directly; political parties should not be tied up with the interests of the rich through party funding too.

Until these conditions are met, I don’t believe voices of equal merit are guaranteed an equal hearing, and that doesn’t sound like democracy to me.

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Posted in Constitutional Reform, Social Justice | 2 Comments »

Wealth equality versus Freedom

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

I generally refer to myself as a Social Liberal. How can you be a Socialist and a Liberal at the same time, I hear you ask? Well, therein lies a tension that forces a constant re-evaluation of one’s support for political ideas and policy; a process which every political brain should constantly be conducting.

I am Liberal in that I see the ultimate goal of politics as a quest to free people. Freeing entrepreneurs to innovate and grow the economy is just as important as freeing employees from over-prescriptive bosses; freeing people from unjustified intrusion into their personal lives, like the snooping on people’s emails, matches freeing police and other local public servants to be creative and improve the standard of outcomes that local government can achieve. It means freeing people of different sexes, ethnic backgrounds, sexualities, abilities, and states of physical and mental health to work in a sector of their choice, lead their personal lives in private, and worship as they wish without prejudice, stigma or economic penalty.

I am Social in that I see the State as a vehicle for social justice*. Social justice means making sure that we don’t loose sight of the ultimate goal of markets, which is a means to efficiency, not justice. While we require that entrepreneurs be incentivised to push the boundaries of technology and organisation efficiency, we also require that for every increase in economic output there is a corresponding rise in overall living standards. Trickle down theory is all very well, but the State is there to police the implementation of that theory, and prevent exploitation, short-termism, and all the other market failures that lead to social injustice.

In truth I see myself as neither a Socialist nor a Liberal, since both positions are ultimately too extreme for me. I don’t believe that social justice should ever be wholly sacrificed in the name of personal freedom, and neither should overzealous redistribution of wealth stifle people’s freedom to create, innovate and improve the world. Rather, the joint justification, the double-litmus of any policy, is that it increases freedom or social justice without decreasing the other**. It is in these terms that I frame my discussion of social justice, and under these conditions that my support for concepts like redistributive tax and minimum wages stands and falls (not respectively), as you will see.

* the principal argument for the state is still to ensure the rule of law/prevent anarchy, but since this is essentially the starting point of economics it is also in the State’s power to dictate the terms of those economics.

** unless the massive benefit to one is outweighed by the small decrease in the other, one should never box oneself in in such broad terms!

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Posted in Social Justice | No Comments »

What falls under the umbrella of diversity?

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

What do we mean when we talk about political diversity?  The thing that springs to my mind as a political geek in the UK is gender and race proportions in the House of Commons.  This is an incredibly blinkered definition, and the terrifying numbers (14% women in the cabinet, only 21.5% in the house, 0% ethnic minorities in the Lib Dems, and so on) are functions of too many variables to be accurately accounted for, most of which are out of the hands of party executives and local selection committees anyway.

What I mean when I talk about political diversity is a diverse mixture of birth traits (sex, race;) life experience (SpAds vs. sheet metal workers;) educational background (private schooled vs. others and Oxbridge vs. others vs. none;) personal wealth; and even political affiliation (how many Greens, UKIPs, Communists and BNP/fascists there are.)  Large numbers are shut out of professional political life today by barriers economic, social and democratic, and this is why our government is profoundly unrepresentative of our society in the UK.

None of the above, excepting the electoral system, are what I would call physical barriers, no one is barred from standing for parliament either legally or by their party on any of these grounds (even the BNP must now, by law, allow members of our ethnic minorities to join and apply to be their PPCs,) they are “merely” psychological and practical.  The networks one gains by attending university (and joining political societies there,) an effect exaggerated at Oxbridge colleges, are hugely beneficial to those happy to exploit them.  Equally, especially in smaller parties, the effect of personal wealth is very detrimental to candidate diversity, as the only person capable of running a “proper” campaign (as measured against the well funded machinery of the Tories) is someone of independent, or at least sufficient, means.

Political diversity does mean the proportion of women and ethnic minority MPs, which is still appalling even in this day and age, but there is so much more to it that just gender and race issues.  Neither should this be a dry armchair topic, it is a gritty, tough subject that makes people angry and motivated (my kind of politics,) but is rarely found being debated.  We need to move this debate out from Woman’s hour*; from there to the workplace, the youth club, the book group and the football practise.  We need to encourage people from all walks of life to see politics as an opportunity, not a waste of time, and we need to make sure that those who are already engaged but remain on the fringes due to economic and democratic injustice are given a proper voice (to stop them turning to the violent dark side of political frustration). Only when a proper mixture of people really start engaging in politics, will we stand a chance of fixing our Oxbridge-ridden, match-fixed, inside-joke of a political system.

* Not that they should stop talking about it, of course.

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Posted in Diversity | No Comments »