"Democracy" or "Governing for the Next Election"

...unless either philosophers become kings in their countries or those who are now called kings and rulers come to be sufficiently inspired with a genuine desire for wisdom; unless, that is to say, political power and philosophy meet together, there can be no rest from troubles...for states, nor yet, as I believe, for all mankind... (Plato, Republic)

...He who bids the law rule may be deemed to bid God and Reason alone rule, but he who bids man rule adds an element of the beast; for desire is a wild beast, and passion perverts the minds of rulers, even when they are the best of men. The law is reason unaffected by desire. (Aristotle, Politics)

I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with politics. Why? Democracy. Democracy is the problem.

I'm not the only one who holds this belief. I'm not even the first to argue this. Aristotle classified democracy as one of three perverted constitutions.* He was building upon Plato's idea of the philosopher king. In Republic, Plato argued that we are too easily seduced by our own selfish desires to rule properly and that only a philosopher, who is only interested in virtue (and who knows true virtue), could truly rule for the collective good. Plato also spoke of the decline of this ideal state as the eventual corruption of the philosopher king. Plato says that there can be no true philosopher king because philosophers, once they've seen what real justice (virtue) is, will no longer be interested in ruling this unjust world. Therefore Plato admits that kings and rulers must become "sufficiently inspired with a genuine desire for wisdom," rather than, as is ideal, philosophers, who already have this genuine desire, be compelled to become kings.** Because of this, the philosopher king will not be a true philosopher and Plato's ideal state will fall. Aristotle's answer is to have law rule, not man. In his view, law is inalienable and intrinsic in nature. It is not law found in books and court rulings, but law found in nature. Philosophers can see this law, but the average person does not. In democracy we create law. Our law is at best, in the views of Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato, imperfect representations of an ultimate reality (or of real law). As such, democracy is not a good form of government. As Winston Churchill said, it is "the worst form of government" (except for all the others that have been tried).

For me, politicians have been fairly good. For the most part, politicians do an honest job of doing what they honestly believe to be the best for their population. Problem is they soon realize they can only do this if they're elected (and re-elected). The result is that politicians have a habit of becoming consumed with public opinion polls and special interests. The weakest politicians allow this to consume them, while the strongest ones try to rise above this. Former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin wobbled back and forth on ballistic missle defence (he was for it, then due to fears about his electability in Quebec, against it) and the war in Iraq (he spoke out against it to buy the passifist vote even though speaking for it would have been in our national interest and would not have cost many lives or much money - we were over-extended in Afghanistan and therefore had nothing left to commit to Iraq except a hearty "good-luck"). On the other hand, Pierre E. Trudeau looked straight into the eyes of the dissenters and told them he was going to give us a Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms because (he believed) it was in Canada's best interests. Louis St Laurent, as Justice Minister supported conscription in 1944 inspite of its unpopularity because it was in Canada's national interest. He also agreed to expand Canada's military commitments abroad in the 1950's (Korea and NATO commitments in Germany). The former, Paul Martin, governed for the next election while that latter, Trudeau and St Laurent, governed for Canada. Whether or not you agree with how Trudeau and St Laurent went about promoting Canada's interests, they were promoting their view of Canada's interests rather than promoting their electability. Unfortunately, the examples of good politicians are too few, and the example of bad ones, too many.

The best way to ensure politicians govern for the people instead of for the next election is to remove the need to worry about the next election. Some politicians, notably Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, take the approach of doing the "general good" things as early into a mandate as possible because by the time the next election comes up, people forget. McGuinty introduced his "Health Premium" very early so people might forget when the next election came around in four years (it seems to have worked since he was re-elected with another majority). Assuming this philosophy is a popular one among power-seekers (as all politicians naturally are) in democracies, it might be wise to extend the period during which they believe they can get away with governing for the "general good". I'm proposing a "Decade Democracy".

My Decade Democracy will see fixed elections at the beginning of each decade (January 2010, January 2020...). This will extend the period of time for which politicians like Dalton McGuinty could govern for the general good. With a full decade to govern, politicians will have to be concerned with the long-term good of the country (after all, ten years is pretty long-term). But there's more.

My Decade Democracy will see leaders limitted to one term - no possibility of re-election. This way they will never have the incentive of governing for the next election. With out electibility concerns, politicians, who are generally good, will be able to act free from election considerations - they will act purely for the "general good".

My Decade Democracy will see the winning party given 50% plus 1 seats in the house (currently, 155 seats - or 308 divided by 2 plus 1). The rest of the seats (currently 153) will then be divided between parties relative to the percentage of total votes (not including votes won by the winning party) earned.*** This would guarantee a majority government (which historically work much better than minority governments in Canada), while equitably distributing the remaining seats. Such a small minority, however, would also mean the government would be unable to bully the rest of the House.

My Decade Democracy would see the Senate elected, every ten years, mid-way through the House's tenure (i.e. January 2015, January 2025...). This would give the government a sort of progress report half way through their mandate. It would keep the Senate from worrying about the next election. The Senate would have a similar duty as they do now - sober second thought, but without much legislative power. The Senate would consist of 130 members (10 from each province and territory), would be party-neutral, and elections would depend mostly on attaining media coverage, not on buying one's way into the media.**** The Senate would have 10 votes in the House of Commons. This would allow them to first influence the House via their reading of bills and would allow them to overturn only those votes that are very narrowly decided (i.e. by fewer than 10 votes).

Otherwise, the political system would remain mostly unchanged, meaning democracy cannot be legislated out of existence (as Hitler did in Germany) and those inalienable rights and freedoms in our Charter would be guaranteed.

Consider this a couple hours worth of rough draft and rather superfiscial idealizing. I'll refine this over time through discussions and further thought.

*****
* Nelson, Brian R., Western Political Thought: From Socrates to the Age of Ideology, (2nd Ed), Prentice Hall, 1996, p. 59
** Plato, Republic
*** For example, if the vote were to break down as follows:

Liberals - 44% (440,000 votes)
Conservatives - 26% (260,000)
NDP - 20% (200,000)
Green - 10% (100,000)
Total Votes Cast - 1,000,000

The Liberals would win 155 seats. The Conservatives would win 71 seats (26% of 1,000,000 equals 46.4% of the 560,000 votes not won by the winner which equals 46.4% of the votes not won by the winner, which equals 71 of the remaining 153 seats). With the same math, the Greens would win the remaining 27 seats.
**** Twenty to twenty-five Senate candidates would be chosen in each province/territory by a coalition of local government, business and academic leaders, then there would be a general vote in which the population would chose 10 of the 20 to 25 candidates. (I'll refine this later, as it is clearly quite problematic.)

The Return (aka. World Food Crisis...and Canada)

I call this post "The Return" because it has been nearly a year (10 months, 13 days to be precise) since I last blogged. I apologize to my faithful reader for my neglect. I add, in parentheses, "aka. World Food Prices...and Canada" because that's what this post is actually about. My interest spawned from an article in Time magazine and is the latest in an exchange of emails with a friend. Enjoy!

After your response I decided to do a little more research into the subject. I think I did perhaps overstate the roll of biofuels, but nevertheless was correct that they are a major factor today, and will be an increasingly impactful factor in the years to come. Second and third generation biofuels (such as the switchgrass that you mention, and algea) are perhaps a decade away (though my money says much sooner). This article at http://www.wikipedia.org/ was a very good starting point for me in my research: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007-2008_world_food_price_crisis).

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) states that "the very tight situation of the current 2007/08 season has led to a steady rise in world prices of all cereals, pushing up the food import bill of many importing countries and generating widespread sharp increases in domestic food prices." This suggests that, world-wide, supply is a major aspect of the current crisis. Further in the same report, the FAO claims that, "World wheat stocks by the close of seasons in 2008 are forecast at 144 million tonnes, down 9 percent from their already reduced opening level." These reduced supply numbers, combined with increased diversion from food to fuel (100 million tonnes of cereals, or about 5% of total production, will be used for biofuels according to the FAO), are significant. I believe 5% is meaningful, especially if, as the FAO claims, world supply is already down. These figures indicate that supply and demand is a major factor in world food prices and that (as you suggested) market speculation is exaggerating this big problem into a crisis (1).

I also somewhat suspect that you are arguing more based on the situation in Canada, which I assume is somewhat less dire than the international situation. In fact the FAO projects an 5% increase in wheat production from 2007 to 2008 in Canada (2). But while production is projected to increase, cereals stocks are projected to be at barely half the level they were in 2006: 8.5 million tonnes in 2008 versus 16.2 million tonnes in 2006 (3).

I guess my only argument would be that this is a world food crisis, not simply a Canadian one. If the Canadian government is interested in taking up this cause (as it must), it needs to think globally, not just nationally. That means it needs to consider global factors. Especially since Canadians (for the most part) can afford to pay a bit more for food - the roughly 1.1 billion people living in extreme poverty, who are most affected by this price increase, simply cannot.

(I hope this friend doesn't mind!)