D
Deleted member 1
Guest
In this thread I would like to discuss a political idea that, over time, I have come to believe would be more effective at dealing with the issues than Republics than almost anything else we could now prepare, and which would tend to mitigate their negative effects. It was used to a limited extent in some European countries starting in the 1890s (particularly Belgium), and was popularised by Nevil Shute, the famous author of "On the Beach", whose really good works are actually In the Wet and Round the Bend.
Nevil Shute was, despite the hijacking of On the Beach by leftist anti-nuclear activists, actually something of a modern, practical conservative but committed monarchist, a true believer in the unity of the Dominions and Britain, and of course a very distinguished aeronautical engineer on "The Capitalist Airship", the R.100, with Barnes Wallis, and several later projects in the 1930s.
In In the Wet, Shute imagines a future in which the Dominions have adopted the Multiple Vote, and ultimately the Queen flees a socialist Britain to force it (by the popular affection of the common people for Her) to adopt the Multiple Vote as well. The hero of the story, David 'Nigg*r' Anderson (note--this is reproduced for authenticity from the original in which the name is presented as a nickname which Squadron Leader Anderson does not object to, and in fact actively introduces himself by that nickname, being a quadroom with indigenous Australian blood, showing his easygoing disposition in which he doesn't get offended--he is a perfectly accomplished Three Vote Man with a rank equivalent to OF-3, after all), a decorated member of the Royal Australian Air Force, uses his indigenous Australian sixth sense or instinct to dream the threat of a bomb and disarm it in midair on his aircraft as he executes the Queen's perilous escape from the socialist government in Britain.
The central plot of the book is the need for the Multiple Vote to combat socialism and correct the problems of modern democracies (both republics and constitutional monarchies). To summarise the multiple vote:
The essential idea is to increase the number of ballots as a reward for obviously meritorious accomplishments across the political spectrum which are fixed and can't be altered by the Government, which serve to actually reward more socially acceptable people with more political power, while still maintaining universal suffrage. This, then, would counterbalance the tendency of mob rule which we see to grow stronger and stronger in modern western democracies, and promote accomplishment as a legitimate and straightforward way of improving one's political power.
Nevil Shute was, despite the hijacking of On the Beach by leftist anti-nuclear activists, actually something of a modern, practical conservative but committed monarchist, a true believer in the unity of the Dominions and Britain, and of course a very distinguished aeronautical engineer on "The Capitalist Airship", the R.100, with Barnes Wallis, and several later projects in the 1930s.
In In the Wet, Shute imagines a future in which the Dominions have adopted the Multiple Vote, and ultimately the Queen flees a socialist Britain to force it (by the popular affection of the common people for Her) to adopt the Multiple Vote as well. The hero of the story, David 'Nigg*r' Anderson (note--this is reproduced for authenticity from the original in which the name is presented as a nickname which Squadron Leader Anderson does not object to, and in fact actively introduces himself by that nickname, being a quadroom with indigenous Australian blood, showing his easygoing disposition in which he doesn't get offended--he is a perfectly accomplished Three Vote Man with a rank equivalent to OF-3, after all), a decorated member of the Royal Australian Air Force, uses his indigenous Australian sixth sense or instinct to dream the threat of a bomb and disarm it in midair on his aircraft as he executes the Queen's perilous escape from the socialist government in Britain.
The central plot of the book is the need for the Multiple Vote to combat socialism and correct the problems of modern democracies (both republics and constitutional monarchies). To summarise the multiple vote:
- The first vote is given to every citizen on reaching the age of 21.
- The second vote is for university graduates and commissioned military officers.
- The third vote is earned after living and working abroad for at least two years.
- The fourth vote is for raising two children to the age of fourteen without divorcing.
- The fifth vote is for earning at least £5000 in the year before the election. (This is a pretty elite-level income. A newly-built three-bedroom house, we are told, costs four or five thousand Australian pounds.)
- The sixth vote is for officials in any of the recognized Christian churches.
- The seventh vote is given only at the discretion of the monarch. (At the novel’s climax our hero, a “three-vote man”, saves the Queen’s life, earning the rare and prestigious seventh vote.)
“Aw, look,” said David. “West Australia was walking away with everything. We got a totally different sort of politician when we got the multiple vote. Before that, when it was one man one vote, the politicians were all tub-thumping nonentities and union bosses. Sensible people didn’t stand for parliament, and if they stood they didn’t get in. When we got multiple voting we got a better class of politician altogether, people who got elected by sensible voters.” He paused. “Before that when a man got elected to the Legislative Assembly, he was an engine driver or a dock labourer, maybe. He got made a Minister and top man of a Government department. Well, he couldn’t do a thing. The civil servants had him all wrapped up, because he didn’t know anything.”
“And after the multiple voting came in, was it different?”
“My word,” said the Australian. “We got some real men in charge. Did the Civil Service catch a cold! Half of them were out on their ear within a year, and then West Australia started getting all the coal and all the industry away from New South Wales and Victoria. And then these chaps who had been running West Australia started to get into Canberra. In 1973, when the multiple vote came in for the whole country, sixty per cent of the Federal Cabinet were West Australians. It got so they were running every bloody thing.”
“Because they were better people?” asked the captain.
“That’s right.”
The essential idea is to increase the number of ballots as a reward for obviously meritorious accomplishments across the political spectrum which are fixed and can't be altered by the Government, which serve to actually reward more socially acceptable people with more political power, while still maintaining universal suffrage. This, then, would counterbalance the tendency of mob rule which we see to grow stronger and stronger in modern western democracies, and promote accomplishment as a legitimate and straightforward way of improving one's political power.