TALKING POINT " ABOLISHING SEANAD, REDUCING TDS, TRANSFORMING STORMONT"

What sort of political reform do you want?

‘POLITICAL REFORM’ is the flavour of the day. They’re all on about it. ‘The politicians let us all down. We have too many of them. They’re all the same. They are too focussed on local issues. They need to be legislators and not be looking after local drains, etc. They’re all up there in Dublin (or Stormont) and we never see them between elections . . .’ Or maybe it’s not about politicians. ‘The system is to blame. Abolish the Seanad. Reform the Seanad. What is the Seanad?’ It can all be very confusing sometimes.
Generally, I am cautious. I am not in favour of changing things quickly. Not just because of ‘the devil you know’ and all that, but if we get it wrong and give power to any group it might not be so easily retrieved.
With that thought in mind I decided to see if I could make sense of it all. What is ‘The System’? What should it be? What do we expect from our politicians? What is our role in it all? After all, we live in a democracy, don’t we? Well, don’t we?
Democracy, we are told, means that the people are sovereign. But are people in Ireland sovereign? How much power do the people really have if, for example, the power to create and destroy their livelihoods is in the hands of a small number of wealthy owners of big companies?
Is it democratic for wealth and the means of producing wealth to be controlled by a small minority in Ireland, and globally, for global markets to destroy national economies? Or for the demands of these unaccountable markets and unelected elites to dictate social policy affecting everyone? How democratic is it that Seánie Fitzpatrick, Michael Fingleton and their pals had the power to bankrupt the 26-County state?
I have a Chinese friend who tells me that China is a very democratic country. Her argument goes something like this: In Ireland, elections are about which party we put in power and most of the parties have roughly the same policies anyway; in her country, they don’t worry about such things — they have one party and elect party members to party positions based on the policies they want to implement for the people. For her, that is much more democratic. Interesting argument, isn’t it?
Americans elect a president who then appoints unelected people to all his ministries — another interesting take on democracy.
In Switzerland, they have a gazzillion meetings about everything.
Seems there are very different views about democracy.
What is democracy anyway?
Classical scholars will tell you it developed in Athens about 500BC. All the citizens had a say in politics. Of course, at that time citizens were outnumbered by slaves in a ratio of about five to one! Oh, and women didn’t have a say either. Others will argue that ancient tribal societies were democratic with everyone having a say. True up to a point. Lots of cutting off heads to settle disputes too but, hey, each to their own.
The idea had a good run in Athens before invasion, collapse, ruination, etc, etc. It had a couple of false starts before coming to the fore again during the 17th and 18th centuries. Modern political parties arose in England at that time, although there had been ‘factions’ in Athens in 500BC. It was also a time of great political and intellectual upheaval.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man of the French Revolution became a set of ideas used in revolutions across the world and, largely written by Lafayette, was built upon the ideas of John Locke and Thomas Paine, amongst others.
Pre-Marxist socialist thinkers of that period included Thomas Hodgskin in England, Jeán Jacque Rousseau in France, and Marcus Thrane in Norway. And, of course, Marx in the mid-19th century became the catalyst for huge political change.
In 1791, in Haiti there was a slave revolution which set up a free republic. Slavery was banned in England in 1833 and in 1848 universal (male!) suffrage was introduced in France. The roots of most modern political systems can be traced to this period of history. Even the idea of politics of the Right and Left has its root in where people sat in the French National Assembly at the time of the French Revolution.
If we look around the world we see many different systems. Direct democracy, or versions of it, representative democracies, or versions of it, limited suffrage, list voting systems and mixed voting systems. It’s a jungle out there!  Is there a ‘best’ system?  Should each culture have its own system suited to its people?
If we accept that democracy means the people have supreme power, then the purpose of a political and electoral system should be to ensure that. Instead of discussing abstract ideas, maybe we should look at some of the systems that currently exist. All of them call themselves democracies, all of them have strengths, and all of them have weaknesses.
If we are to decide what is the best system for Ireland it might be a good idea to take a look at what works — or doesn’t work — in other countries. Over the course of a series of articles I’ll be looking at some of the political systems used in other countries and try to measure them against the statement that democracy means that the people are sovereign. Maybe, just maybe, we can learn from the mistakes, and successes, of others.