Dave, thank you for your perspectives on my piece. Yes, I did some statistical significance on this and that confirmed a number of the groups as having distinct behavior. I did not do column one and three because one can see their outcomes are much the same, so the statistical significance would have resulted in not significant. I am certain (see my disclaimer) that economic and political specialists can work out this information further and write volumes about this.
If you take a good look at the outcomes, then there is a bandwidth of outcomes that all systems seem to have in common. This points to the discussion we already had: any system can make the same political decision. But of course, they do not all do that. What the graph shows is that some systems (the ones with the winner-take-all component) can take matters to the extreme. In these two groups (column one and three), not all, but some do take it to the extremes.
Canada and the US systems are nothing alike, but there is a good amount of mutual influence and common history. The good part for Canada is that it has two empowered political layers, whereas the US has three. Column three and five in the graphs show that having that extra layer creates an opportunity for the elite to influence the outcome. As the French say: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Had Canada had a president, then it would probably be very similar to the US with probably a solidification of just two parties.
Your point about presidents is well taken. It was difficult for me to review each and every nation in how far the president yielded real power. Not many people know that Germany has a president. If that person speaks up (i.e. rarely ever) everyone takes note. I am certain that the more political power a president has, the more the elite ends up receiving in their pockets. There may be a good president every now and then, but this person will be followed up by three ‘bad’ ones. It is the third layer that can warp the outcomes, and Canada has that third layer on paper, but not in daily effects.
Correlation. First off, as the writer, I have the freedom to declare what I see. But what I tend to do is look for the ground features and that supports my perspectives. In this case, the ground feature is the system in place. The ground feature is definitively not wealth distribution. There is no confusion possible about that; I hope you can see that. Questions are good, but what is solid should be recognized as solid (but see disclaimer).
The dial one can discover among all is the dial of political and economic freedom; some nations provide much, others little, and yet others tinker with one and not the other.
Despite my strong writing, I am not hooked on proportional voting; I care about the results. But what proportional voting delivers is:
A/ a seat at the political table for everyone and
B/ political diversity
These are extremely important systemic features for political and economic emancipation. In Canada, you’re lucky because B happens to fall into place. The local bulwarks are separated out geographically far from each other, resulting in location-specific outcomes. You definitively do not have A, so people are politically suppressed and that is why Canada is rather far removed from the actual results of the Nordic nations. It does poorly compared to the actual results in Scandinavia, but Canada looks (very) good in the Americas.
In the US, a nation without A or B, I see a good amount of serfdom because there is no real escape from the 2 parties in the 3 federal layers. Many people vote for one party because they dislike the other party; that’s not freedom of choice of course, and it shows in the results. The ones in power (in the seats or behind the curtains) can hit the bottom of society with more power than in nations that have A and B, because the bottom has virtually no seats, no true representation. There is an enormous opportunity to ignore, and this ignorance is visible in the results.
TDG is district voting, Dave. It is winner-takes-all. My prediction for Canada putting it in place is that it will allow more political colors at the local level (a good thing, because more parties lead to smarter outcomes), because voters may be able to refine the outcome (but equally possible may end up with mediocre ‘leaders’ instead). At the larger levels I do not see any change. TDG does not address the national discomfort of voters not being able to express themselves fully.
Dave, my pleasure having discussed this with you both in this new article and the previous article. Thank you very much, and much luck with further promoting TDG. Please note that Sociocracy has a global network; they are very much organized. Since TDG only addresses the local reality, there is a good chance your reason for promoting TDG is already addressed with a process of sociocratic decision making (again, I am not a fan). Thank you, Dave.
Fred-Rick
