Steve Tomljenov wrote:

[...]
>
>The fundamental question facing society is not an economic one, but
>a political one.

I'm not sure I agree with this Steve, although you may be using "economic"
in a way that is different to me. If you mean by this that modern
capitalist society has sufficient productive capacity to provide for the
needs of everyone, then I agree. But if you mean (as you seem to)  the way
the economy is organised, the inequality, the deprivation, the
exploitation, in short the widespread misery created by the capitalist
system in the midst of plenty, then I would obviously disagree.

>How do we organize millions of people so that the laws
>and institutions of that society are made in a way that benefits the vast
>majority, if not all, of it's members.

That is an admirable objective, but of course it is not and never has been
the object of political government. Political government is the art of
governing the majority in the interests of an elite.

History teaches us that the form of political government began with the
crack of the slave-drivers whip. That is to say it only became necessary
when society became divided along class lines.

Society is still divided along class lines. No longer Master and slave (for
the most part). No longer Lord and serf (at least not in western
countries). But now we are divided between capitalists and workers, divided
also by fundamental conflict of interest which can only be resolved through
the control of some form of political government.

So the reason political government never operates for the benefit of the
vast majority is not that its method is flawed, but because it was designed
to do the exact opposite. Tinkering with it won't help either because
political government is designed to serve the ECONOMIC system.

I like your discussion of political systems (despite myself) though.

But I think your premise, that one of the problems is the sheer size of
electorates, is interesting. That has some truth, but I think my analysis
(above) is closer to the mark.

As a matter of fact my home state (Tasmania) is massively over-governed by
modern standards. It also has probably the most fair and democratic
electoral system in the western world. This system, the Hare-Clark
proportional representation system, elects 35 state parliamentarians, in 5
geographical electorates.

Each of the 5 electorate has only 50-60,000 electors (from memory, don't
quote me) and since each electorate elects 7 members of parliament many
Tasmanians DO know their politicians. I know a couple myself, it doesn't
help much, because politicians are required to act in the interests of the
ruling class except at the margins.

What is more, the Hare-Clark system is designed to minimise the influence
of political parties in determining who is elected. The major parties
nominate 7 candidates in each electorate, but only (at most) 4 will be
elected and the party has no control over WHICH of its endorsed candidates
will get a guernsey. Tasmanians regularly turf out sitting politicians from
a political party and replace them with new members from the same political
party. I remember one particular case (although it happens every election)
where a highly respected, long serving member was turfed out because he
happenned to be the Education Minister presiding over unpopular cuts in
education funding.

Anyhow, none of this changes the fundamental problems. Which is that REAL
power is not in the hands of politicians and governments, it is in the
hands of the owners of the means of production. So it is the economic
system that must be changed, if we end the division of society along class
lines then political government will no longer be NECESSARY.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas.