Over on LibCon, our CE comrade Paulie has written an article (and can I just say Paulie, it's fantastic) about the narrow populism and it's relationship to liberty. It's come in for a few bits of criticism such as this from cjcjc:
Paul Evans well demonstrates the liberal hatred of the masses…how very dare they have (the wrong) opinions. None of which are really their own, of course. Unlike him the lower orders have their views dictated by the tabloid press along with a bunch of sinister “think tanks” which 99.99999% of the population has never heard of.
And this one from Tory stalwart Newmania
The argument Paul Evans is making comes down to this . ‘I know I am unpopular but as I am so very clever in my own opinion the structures tat allow my views to prevail should be retained.’
To which I'd answer: "Yes, politicans do know better and should have the power to make unpopular decisions."
Let me explain:
Let us imagine that our voter was given the choice: Would you like to stroke this fluffy kitten? Aside from those with a dislike of cats I think most people would pretty affirmative, now lets imagine that through a complex sequence of events unknown to the voter, stroking said kitten killed a thousand bunny rabbits. All of a sudden what seemed like a harmless decision would actually become a very dangerous one.
The reason we don't put all decisions to referendum is that voters simply don't have the time to evaluate the precise consequences of the decisions they make, we have politicians who can take the time to fully evaluate the consequences and make the decisions. A referendum on council tax rises is like submitting the fluffy kitten question, it seems an obvious choice, but it leads to a whole lot of nasty unforseen consequences.
Adjusting decision making in this way is dangerous because it ignores important wider concerns, it works both ways too. A lot of people would argue that union power in the 70's with it's own narrow populism did untold damage to the competetiveness of British business. Just who exactly has what decision making power is a complex debate but a level of sense in political decision making can save a whole lot of bunny rabbits.
About the author: Andreas is a Labour activist based in Norwich, he's organiser for his local ward of Town Close. He works as a software developer and being the mercenary soul that he is has found himself working in the insurance, financial services, electronics and marketing industries at various points in time. He blogs at CitizenAndreas. Read more from this author