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John Quiggin 
@wmmbb
Obviously, the most pressing issue we face today is how to deal with the looming difficulties caused by AGW and the other consequences of overpopulation, but I also believe that we need to start taking a much longer view.
We don’t often do this – our discussions about history, religion, economics, the evolution of society, rarely go back beyond the advent of agricultural and town-dwelling communities 7 or 8 thousand years ago. The preceding 200 millenia of low-impact hunter/gatherer societies are generally ignored, yet a study of these earliest communities can be very instructive, and may well be useful in developing objectives for the remote future.
My optimistic hope is that by the end of this century we will have acknowledged the reality of the global plague of humans threatening to irrevocably ruin the planet’s ecology, and will be moving to a mode of government that can achieve an orderly reduction to a sustainable population. (I haven’t tried to do the maths, but a steady rate of decline over a thousand years to a final population of about a tenth of current numbers should be feasible.)
A question is, what kind of political system do we need, to cope initially with the consequences of warming and overpopulation, and then with overseeing a steady decline?
My own instinct is individualist and libertarian – the hunter/gatherer mode – but I can’t see that working in a situation where the movement and reproduction rates of people, food production, and resource and waste management, all need to be closely managed.
The alternative is disasters of disease, drought, flooding, starvation and war.
While Lord Monkton’s contributions are deeply misguided, just plain wrong, and probably cynical and self-serving, his warnings of an authoritarian socialist world government may have some validity. In fact, it may be our only option.
Fran, sorry if I offend but that’s my lot in life. I like your writing style (with few commas) and I bet you’re a fast talker.
Wilful, yes it was a close run thing. Possibly a function of the course insensitivity of the first past the post voting system.
Proportional represenation might have shown the trend with more sensitivity. I’d need to do some Maths to confirm that.
jakerman, we’ve got preferential voting in the lower house. This is NOT (thank goodness) the same thing as FPP (nor proportional representation).
We’re not going to change our voting system any time soon, so we need to deal with the facts on the ground, not some personal preference on what we might like.
Mr Joggles, I’m astonished by your viewpoint, who have you been reading? At first I thought it irony, but on closer inspection you sound like a Fabian.
Monckton’s ‘warnings of an authoritarian socialist world government may have some validity. In fact, it may be our only option.’
Wilful,
A hearty dose of pragmatism. We have a 2PP first past the post majoritarianism. I.e less senstive to trends until they gain the majority. That is my point. That we can see a larger swing to the greens than to the Coaliton yet nearly get a less Green government.
While I do prefer a system of proportional representation, my arguemnt doesn’t require waiting for one. My argument simply rather acknowledges the paradox in the swing and the close call result, and prospses the reason is the trend that has been building and just starting to to become evident in the 2PP vote without dominating the result clearly.
jakerman, you can’t have a conversation with someone where you make up terms that contradict everyone else’s long-standing definitions. We do NOT have a first-past-the-post system, whether you say so or not.
The obvious counterfactual, the primary vote of the coalition was substantially higher than Labor’s. Yet how did Labor form government? Preferentially…
We get our proportional representation from the Senate, where, as you know, the Greens will hold the BoP, and when they support the Coalition, who are far more popular than them, legislation proposed by the executive government will be defeated.
Willful, appologies for using non-standard definition. My point is that Fist past the 50% post is insensitve subtle change and may well account for the paradox on the green swing verus the near Abbot govt.
Hence my proposal the electorate is greening (largest swing) despite the near Abbot result. I.e FP(50%)P = 2PP election is less sensitive multiple messages than is proportional representation. This is evident comparing the results in the two houses.
jakerman
I have to agree with wilful. The 2PP is merely one number out of the many that a preferential (technically an STV) voting system returns. It is used to measure the relative standings of the 2 leading parties in a multi party preferential election. There is not, but probably needs to be, a similar measure for the relative standing of the 3 leading parties. If we had FPTP the only independent in the House would be Tony Windsor. The others were all elected on preferences.
Reversed majorities, where the winner in terms of popular votes does not win a majority of seats, are inherent in the mathematics of any system based on single-memebr districts and actually much more common than most people realise. 1998 was the last federal example and 2010 in South Australia was the last sate example. Note that reversed majorities do not require a gerrymander to happen.
I say extending proportional representation to the House of Representatives is an excellent idea, but inventing a whole new terminology will not help do it.
@el gordo I don’t think my viewpoint is at all astonishing. I believe it is objective. It is certainly not “received wisdom”, but my own considered view based on decades of informal study of archaeology and hunter/gatherer cultures, and a life spent among indigenous Australians.
The key realizations (if I try to simplify things like that) are:
– That our dominant ideas about human civilization and how we ought to live, are based on only those recent millenia during which farming, town-dwelling cultures evolved, while ignoring the 200 millenia preceding, which actually represent the norm for our species;
– That the dichotomy between collective cultures and individualist/libertarian instints originates in this shift to agrarian societies;
– That the notion that Western societies value liberty is a conceit, our individuality is an illusion we cling to despite the fundamentally (and necessarily) collective nature of our society;
– That the idea that hunter/gatherer societies are collectives is also wrong, they are the most individualist and libertarian of societies, this has a lot to do with their difficulties in adapting to our ways;
– That my own instinct is to live the individualist, libertarian life, but that this is not remotely possible for the vast seething mass of humankind currently wreaking havoc on our only planet;
– That there is no “Humanity”, there are only humans, and they will all do whatever they need to do to try to survive.
(I hope all the sensible people who contribute to this blog don’t think they’ve encountered another nutbag – I obviously have too much time on my hands – but if they do think that I’ll go away.)
Wilful said:
Your method of counting is flawed. The total primary vote of all ALP-aligned parties and individuals exceeded that of all Liberal-aligned parties and individuals by nearly 500,000 and constituted an overall majority of all 1st preference votes. I know because I did the count personally.
Nevertheless, it is the case that the number of voters per seats in states where the swing against the ALP and to the coalition was most harsh was greater than in states where there was a swing to the ALP. Putting aside PR, malapportionment favoured the coalition. Had there been as many seats per vote in Tasmania as QLD there would probably not have been a hung parliament at all, or the Greens would have the balance of power. The ALP could probably have had four more seats.
jakerman, I have to agree with wilful…
My mistake was using an improper definition of FPTP. I conceed to the correct defintion. But this definition is an aside to the point that I was making.
2PP vote in each electorate decides who wins each seat. The sum of those seats determines government. My point is that this is less sensitive (compared to proportional rep) to trends until the trends become quite large compared to multiple messages being sent.
In fact you can include both sigle member electorate systems 2PP and FPTP together as suffering this lower sensitivity the difference being scale of sensitivity.
Compare the two houses. The senate has shown a clear result compared to the house of reps. I.e. I propose the electorate is greening. One voting system shows it clearly, and the other is less sensitvite to incrimental change.
BTW among your many interesting point, what do you define as a reversed majority.
Fran, Also the ACT is under represented compared to its population, 124,000 per seat compated to the the average 90,000 per seat. If ACT had 3 seats it it would have 83,000 per seat, closer to the average, and by no means the most over represented (60,000 per seat in NT).
BTW, ACT went 2 nil to ALP (60-70 2PP) with Green vote IIRC in the 20% region.
Call me disbelieving, but I find it difficult to believe that in the past several weeks you have counted approximately 10 million ballots. 🙂
(hey, pedants can be pedantically wrong too)
More seriously, where does the Green party say that it is ALP aligned?
I’m not quite sure what your argument is here Fran.
Crikey had interesting results today: http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/23/the-final-numbers-roughly-democratic/
Party % vote Proportional seats Actual seats % seats
ALP 38.0% 58 72 48.0%
Liberals 30.5% 46 44 29.3%
LNP (Qld) 9.1% 14 21 14.0%
Greens 11.8% 18 1 0.7%
Nationals 3.7% 6 7 4.7%
Family First 2.3% 3 0 0.0%
Christian Democrats 0.7% 1 0 0.0%
CLP (NT) 0.3% 0 1 0.7%
Independent 2.5% 4 4 2.7%
The Coalition total wasn’t too far out?—?48.7% of the seats for 43.6% of the vote?—?and the independents came out about right, but the Greens are hopelessly under-represented, with most of the difference going to the ALP.
The final numbers: roughly democratic And Greens are hopelessly under-represented:
Between those two points is the point I’ve been emphasising about a greening despite the close call.
And excellent article on carbon pricing:
http://inside.org.au/the-real-cost-of-carbon-pricing/
I think Fran’s point is that if you count together the primary votes of the parties that support the minority government you get a larger number than if you combine the primary votes of the parties that oppose the government.
@jakerman
The 2PP vote is calculated (roughly) be excluding candidates for everyone except Labor and the Coalition and counting the non-Labor and non-Coalition votes according to the next available preference. That is not quite the same as what happens in an individual seat.
When you count a seat the quota to win is more than half of all the votes. If no-one reaches the quota you eliminate the lowest candidate and transfer their votes. You keep on excluding candidates until someone reaches the quota. That is not always the same as the 2PP if the seat goes to someone outside the major parties.
The classic reversed majority is the US in 2000 where Gore won a majority of the popular vote but not a majority in the electoral college. Because of the elegance of preferential voting we use the 2PP. In 1998 Labor won 50.98% of the 2PP but the Coalition won 80 seats in the house.
The ACT is under-represented, but more by accident than design.
The solution would be to round up, instead of rounding to the nearest whole number, but that would require fundamental changes to the way the House is structured. Tasmania is somewhat over-represented in the House because the constitution guarantees a minimum of 5 seats to every original state.
Thanks Alan for your explanation of a reversed majority,
To be clear on definitions, I have been refering to the 2PP voting system (i.e what happens in each seat) not the national 2PP tally.
I will correct my statment to:
Wilful, yes it was a close run thing. Possibly a function of the course insensitivity of the
first past the post[non-proportional 2PP] voting system.Proportional represenation might have shown the trend with more sensitivity. I’d need to do some Maths to confirm that.
jakerman, if the liberals ever decided to really reflect what I suspect is the mood of most of their voters, they would preference the ALP over the greens.
Not many of the liberals I know who are giving their first preference to the Greens.
BTW the only would only increase the swing to the Greens, which is the indictor I was describing. The libs will have a hell of time trying to put that genie back in the bottle.
But what you suggest as a tactic was done in Tasmania this election. This didn’t help the lib vote. It went backward in Tas.
Consider a seat like Mayo, part metro part rural. A safe liberal seat when ALP runs second typically 8% margin). But appers more vulnerable when in 1998 the Democrats (3% margin) then 2008 the Greens (3% margin) ran second.
Despite the protest vote enabled by a by-election in 2008 it is not clear that a safe liberal seat like Mayo prefers the ALP to the Greens.
@jakerman
The 2PP does not decide each individual seat. The relevant number there is the 2 candidate preferred count which can be different from the 2 party preferred count.
@AndrewD
Just read your comment re the podcast with FASTS, and fell off my chair! Did they – the Liberal/Nat coalition – really state that they would give equal weight to evidence and opinion? If so, I guess that explains a few more things about their propensity to listen to opinion-makers a bit too often for my liking. Still, I suppose that is what makes the modern political party in a media-shaped capitalist-master democratic citizen-slave society.
Alan thanks for clarifying the definition. Thus to align our discussion, where I discuss the insensitive system I am refering to the 2 candidate prefered count, (were the 2 cadididates happen to usually represent the major parties). The system by which seat are won and the house of reps electected.
The 2 candidate preferred count is merely another number you can extract from a preferential count. The system is called majority preferential voting. The difficulty with inventing a new name for it is that it can lead to multiple blog comments where the terminology must be established before the substance of the issue can be discussed.
Thanks Alan, no wish to invent new names, I’m talking about the voting system by which house of reps seats are elected. I’m happy to adopt the term “majority preferential voting”.
I.e. the system that is non-proportional. The system that over time has tended towards 2 party duopolies, and the system that is is less senstivtity to incrimental change compared to proportional representation.
Ron Joggles
When the English first came to Port Jackson with their convict cargo they were shocked by the violent behavior of the local males towards their women.
Harboring a romantic view of primitive hunter gatherers may be misplaced.
@el gordo I’m quite familiar with the historical, indeed traditional, and continuing, propensity for violence among indigenous men, and abhor it. My view is not romantic.
I try to consider the entire history of humankind, not just recent millenia. Despite my own instinctive individualism, which I share with my indigenous countrymen, I don’t hold that individualism is preferable to collectivism, or the reverse, just that we need to decide on a mode of government that will see us through the coming crisis.
On an overcrowded, degraded Earth, short on space, water, food and energy, the choice will be between chaos and disaster, and
continuing…. the choice will be between chaos and disaster, and a highly organized collective system. The latter doesn’t appeal to me, and I dread the former, but if my understanding of people is right, chaos is more likely.
(Doesn’t anyone else have a comment? Am I too far out? Alice? Fran? MOSH? Anyone?)
@el gordo
Oh gimme a break el gordo. What was worse was the voilent behaviour of white male convicts towards female convicts. It should be noted here that only the most criminal males got transportation – after a few years the authorities realised there was a desperate shortage of women so women got shipped out for far lesser crimes to balance the genders and calm the settlement down.
Dont talk to me about how local males treated their women and go look at correct history to learn how the local white scumbags treated women also.
Im quite sure they taught the local men a thing or two about how not to treat women…
now lets see – there are documented histories of high defacto rates, of men trawling women around the streets with string around their necks for public auctions, of officers and soldiers and sailors abusing convict women (yes – who suffered transportation for far lesser crimes than these men..in many cases low lifes).
Yes – women were used and abused to keep the animals quieter in the new colony.
Dont even start me el Gordo – and Ron e Joggles – dont listen to el Gordos rubbish. He needs a course in ECON special topics A, B and C – economic history.
@Ron E Joggles
Are you too far out? No – not at all. Collectivism is actually what we live now Ron E but not well enough…Collectivism and learning to live within it is the only thing that will help us survive. Individualism and the pursuit of individual freedom at the expense of the group is the greater threat.
A highly organised collective system doesnt appeal to me either…but sometimes chaos brings order.
Doesn’t anyone else have a comment?
Ignore el gordo.
Thanks Alice and Jakerman, I appreciate your input. I’ve twigged to el gordo but I wasn’t actually complaining about his response to my comment, I was just hoping to have a discussion around these issues. And I do get carried away!
The tension between the individual with broad freedoms, and the organised society we call civilisation, have existed for more than an age. My current view (ie, leaving me some room to cop out and change my opinion later) is that the push for ever greater levels of competition, throughout all tiers of society, is misplaced. The human animal is a social animal, but one that likes some “space” in which to think. Humans generally crave independence but abhor social isolation; being competitive in every engagement eventually sucks the oxygen out of those relationships so necessary for enjoyable participation in society. Collaborative behaviour, especially within the domain of business, has copped a bad rap I reckon. It has been tarred with the brush of communism or something like it, but I don’t know why this is. Perhaps the collaborative relationships in business are just overshadowed by the ultra-competitive, for want of a better word.
I’m not a particularly good example of a person who runs with the herd; being an atheist from a very early age probably didn’t help my chances at remaining in Sunday School 🙂
And it turns out that Sunday School leads to church in which organised religion takes place, cementing people’s “worth” and standing in society. But I just couldn’t believe in arbitrary transgressions of the laws of physics…which is probably how I cemented my own place in society 😦
It is worth remembering that in the land of the confederate libertarian christian, such amalgamation of the individual, democracy, society, and the modern capitalist system takes place, although to what end is a question awaiting an answer.
Ron E Joggles, human population appears set to peak at under 10 billion and then decline some time after 2050. Here’s a link to the wikipedia article on world population:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
Alice, I wasn’t suggesting the European male was any different to the local, as we are all quite aware men seem to have an insatiable appetite. If I may just quote Anne Summers on the situation in the first couple of decades after the inception of the colony.
‘The women’s punishment comprised transportation plus enforced whoredom. For at least the first twenty years they had no means of escaping this fate. The best a woman could do was to form an attachment with one man and live with him as his wife and in this way protect herself from the unwelcome attentions of any other man who fancied her. But whether she was concubine to one man or available to all she was still considered a whore.’
@Donald Oats My Sunday School to Atheism experience was similar. I wonder to what degree the tendency to individualism or collectivism is genetically determined, and to what degree culturally determined?
It is probably no coincidence that human groups who needed to work collectively, like early farming cultures, were also the first adopters of hierarchical religions, with their supreme deities represented on Earth by human deputies.
Where the hunter/gatherer economy remained preferable (or the only option), animism persisted, its salient features being the absence of a supreme deity, and the understanding that all creatures are persons and that all persons have agency, and differ in their power and impact on the world according to their individual characters.
For me, the animist view more closely fits the reality I observe.
And wasn’t Sunday School horrible? The one day that I had to wear shoes and prickly woolen best pants, and sit in a stifling hall listening to stupid girls go on and on about Jesus, when I wanted to be down the creek catching mud cod and turtles.
@Ronald Brak Thanks, lots of good detail there.
The type Cory Bernardi is playing to is livered that this tactic has not yet been widely deployed.
http://www.corybernardi.com/2010/08/greens-global-government-ambitions.html#comment-6a00e5520b72ea883401348674d896970c
In their demented view, why would you preference a group for whom:
the environment is just a front for their real agenda which is homosexuality and Marxism, enforced by means of their compulsory religion which is atheism & earth worship.
Thanks for quoting Bernardi on The Greens as follows:
It is almost a work of art or literature in the precision with which it draws together the majopr strands of conservative cultural angst and utters them with the admirably explicit intellectual incoherence that marks the cohort.
That the extract is bookended with mutually exclusive claims is especially felicitous.
Go Cory!
Cory is nearly that bad, but that quote is from one of his blog fans, shows the type that Bernardi is pandering to.
Here is an example of Bernardi’s own words has he gingers up the extremist fringe that were never going to swing anywhere near the centre:
@jakerman Me, I’m all for “atheism & earth worship”, just yesterday I enriched the soil and sequestered substantial carbon by ploughing in several Liberal-voting Christians. Today I’m planning to bugger a nice plump capitalist.
(Sorry if this is a bit too rich, JQ, I just couldn’t resist.)
😉
@Ron E Joggles
Did you mean butter a nice plump capitalist for roasting Ron E?
ROFLOFL…
@el gordo
Yes el gordo but Anne Summer should have said ..”But whether she ended up as concubine to one criminal pimp loser derro or available to all such derros she was still considered a whore”
@Alice
I think you are being ungrossly unfair to Ron E Joggles of cannibalism, which is I think, the only vice the Bernardista wing of the Coalition does not think the Greens intend. On the other hand I don’t think there is a levitical prohibition on cannibalism so it may actually be less of a concern for them.
Whoops ‘grossly unfair to accuse’
@Alice No no, I meant “bugger” in the biblical sense – we are supposed to be honouring our reputation for “homosexuality and Marxism”, aren’t we? Though the idea of Clive Palmer on a spit has its attractions… you wouldn’t even need the butter.
(Just joking Clive, I’m actually straight, I promise, and I try to eat kosher.)