Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Conversation has published yet another green attack on liberal democracy. According to The Conversation, Liberal democracy is old fashioned – it’s antiquated institutions produce climate change “paralysis”, which the authors suggest can be resolved, by transferring democratic powers to unelected panels of national and trans-national bureaucrats.
According to The Conversation;
… Specifically, the failure to tackle climate change speaks to an overall failure of our liberal democratic system…
… Successfully tackling climate change and other big policy challenges depends on making tangible the intangible crisis of liberal democracy.
It means understanding that liberal democracy’s governance machinery – and the static, siloed policy responses generated by such democracies – is no longer fit for purpose.
Naturally The Conversation has a solution for this crisis. My favourite from their list of suggestions, is their idea that democratic powers should be transferred to unelected bureaucrats, who would still somehow be “accountable” to parliament, despite having “staying power” beyond individual political cycles.
Granting more decision-making power to institutions independent of the government of the day, but still accountable to parliaments (such as the Parliamentary Budget Office or Infrastructure Australia). This would increase the capacity of policy planning and decision processes to have staying power beyond individual political cycles.
The authors of this critique of democratic freedom, are Mark Triffitt (Lecturer, Public Policy at University of Melbourne), and Travers McLeod, Honorary Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne.
I think that many of the comments are unduly harsh on the leaders and politicians of the West , and the US in particular . Taking the latter as an example , Obama is constrained in his policies by the Constitution and Congress ( I assume). The members of Congress have so far largely acquiesced to his policy of significant future impoverishment of the nation by high prices for utilities and some form of additional taxation to provide the give- away billions for the Paris summit.
But the members of congress , and the president , were all elected , repeatedly, by free and fair elections , on manifestos well advertised , so the buck stops where it started with the American electorate. They have elected to impoverish themselves for reasons that require not a scientist , nor a constitutional lawyer, but a psychologist to explain.
This is not an anti-American jibe , because exactly the same could be said of the UK Govts and electorate , the EU and certainly Canada and Australia , if what I have read here is a true guide.
Mike– Unfortunately, US’ primary problem isn’t with the electorate, but rather with the Supreme Court, which failed miserably in protecting the Constitution, and of course Supreme Court Justices are not elected officials.
Once Supreme Court decisions destroyed the Constitution, the Exectutive and Leglislative Branches were allowed to pretty much pass any law they pleased.
The easiest way to get re-elected is simply to promise voters to pass laws that will give them a huge amount of other people’s money. This works out pretty well for awhile, until a country runs out of other people’s to steal and then the country collapses… (See Greece).
The U.S. Founding Fathers also didn’t believe in universal suffrage. Initially, only people that paid a certain amount of property taxes were allowed to vote, as it was their money the government was spending, which makes a lot of sense…
This is a recurrent theme throught history, and is why our Founding Fathers hated the concept of mobacracies…
Samurai , thank you for the response . I was wondering why there was not more mention of the influence of the Supreme Court . I remember that in the 60s it seemed to have a crucial role in the social policies of the Kennedys and Johnson ,at least according to reports in the British media . In principle a Supreme Court should be a defence of the vulnerable citizen against reckless or evil leaders , but in practice?
I agree that the general problem is with the Supreme Court. But, of course, who you get on the Supreme Court is controlled entirely by who you elect president.
Here is a brief history of the corruption of the Commerce Clause to allow the federal government to do any damn thing it wants to:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/commerce_clause
My personal belief is that The Framers did not intend for the Feds to have control over CONTENT of products. The intent of the Commerce Clause was to prevent states from unfair trade practices against goods from other states. Fascist mandates of content in goods is perverse. Additionally, OSHA, EEOC, NLRB, etc., are perverse.
You are right, SAMURAI, the US Supreme Court, as well as most State Supreme/highest Courts have become dysfunctional relative to what their original intent and purpose was founded for.
As a matter of fact, the enforcement of the Rule of Law has pretty much become subservient to the “Politics Currently in Control”.
As with Vostok data I think the cause and effect is the wrong way round here. Climate alarmism threatens democracy. The objective of the alarmists is to deny everyone the right to question their actions. What the alarmists want is to create a police state in which they cannot be criticised, but at the same time they, being the cultural police, can ignore democratically-made laws with impunity.
We’ve already seen elements of this effect in the UK with illegal powerstation pickets not being prosecuted, and Robert Goodwill’s announcement that cyclists would not be ticketed for various specifically-illegal activities which motorists definitely would be fined for. Then, we have the flood of illegal telesales calls trying to sell solar panels. Which is now the number one nuisance call in the UK. I believe there has been a similar concern of Al Gore getting away with using spamming techniques to promote his projects. It is indeed worrying when government offices start giving out dispensations to commit crime.
Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.
– Winston Churchill.
I have seen it paraphrased as: “Democracy is a terrible form of government but it’s the best we’ve got.”
Sophoclese– I like, “Democracy is a terrible form of government. PERIOD!”
Did Churchill say that before or after he lost the election to the Fabian who went on to wreck the UK?
The types of people who find democracy an inconvenient obstacle – they are themselves the strongest reasons for having democracy.
When anyone can prove to me by calorimetry (it’s easy in principle, just use a water trough with a gold-sputtered mylar foil lower reflector, a clingfilm cover to prevent evaporation, and a data-logger to follow imaginary temperature change) that ‘back radiation’ is a real energy flux instead of the Atmosphere’s Radiant Exitance, I’ll be willing to accept the concept of the Enhanced GHE.
Otherwise, wake me up when the last of these charlatans collects his or her P45 and a place on a McDonald’s Degree Course in chip frying…….:o)
They manage to do that quite well on their own without any instruction from me. Usually by getting the supply leads reversed.
Are they really that stupid to think “transferring democratic powers” does not undermine democracies and lays the groundwork for a totalitarian state – or is that their wet dream?
This quote is from Wiki but with three small changes.
Here is the original text from the Wiki article
It is interesting how the authoritarian underpinnings of Facism align well with green attacks on democracy.
I believe it was that famous philosopher Dick Martin of laugh-In fame who said “What a co-wink-e-dink”.
He may have been pointing out the unconstitutional actions ofour fascist government even way back then.
Is on one else suspicious that da’ Convo carries these hysterics while seeking its notoriety? Follow the money, not their stench.
About democracy, also from the Wikipedia, “It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election.” (Aristotle, Politics 4, §1294)
I had a conversation with somebody recently and they told me that with political issues that it’s never the facts that are important. It’s the principle.. This is mostly true in history. The details aren’t important. Shouldn’t the facts be of up most importance for an issue based completely on science though? since this debate is completely political now, what can be done to let people get passed their ideologies to see the light of truth? The science is obviously of no importance at this point. It is not just secondary to their cause. it is completely invalid in this debate as far as the alarmists are concerned.
Oh, UoM what a surprise.
Just look at the wonder job that the unelected bureaucrats are doing in China.
Government Bureaucrats being accountable, what a novel concept, we should try that for a change!
Democracy and the more efficient republic were invented to prevent unelected people and bureaucracies, be it a single dictator or a massive organization the size of our federal bureaucracy from running everyone’s lives according to their whims. The idea was that if we’re all going to have to conform to a set of rules, at the very least the majority of us should agree to the rules (which automatically implies a very limited set of rules). Anyone who advocates the abolition of democracy clearly does so because he/she does not believe the majority of people would agree to the particular set of rules they want to enforce. For example democracies generally avoid efforts to fix the weather or climate by throwing virgins into a volcano (not good for virgins) or shutting down all fossil fuel based energy sources (not good for civilization). True, democracies are lousy for implementing ideas that most people don’t agree with. That’s what makes them better than all the other forms of government.
There’s nothing more pathetic than Communists who are too stupid to realize that they’re Communists.
Or, to realise that if Communism did take over they would be the first to lose their much-valued freedom of speech, or the right to sit around all day smoking joints and strummeling a guitar at the taxpayer’s expense. Yes, I think they would be in for a short, sharp shock in finding out what life under real Communism is like.
Ian Macdonald April 24, 2015 at 8:52 am
if Communism did take over they would
be the first to lose their much-valued freedom of speech, or the right tosit around all day smoking joints and strummeling a guitar at the taxpayer’s expense.(my edit)
As they say, there’s more than one way to skin a cat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley
“There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it.”
― Aldous Huxley
Sorry ‘Conversation’, that your elitist rulers planned Global Governance deadline is being delayed by the pesky Democracy of the people.
How inconvenient, comrades.
An educated populace is a far better judge of what should be done in the name of society than a closet full of mal-informed fruitcakes. I think the concept of what is the proper decision process played out centuries ago after Marie-Antoinette said; in effect, if they can’t afford bread, then let them eat cake. That “decision” by the group of the few for the many is still trying to be force fed to us, and perhaps we should consider the same literal, not actual, response.
And for those that would attack what I just said because I mentioned society versus environment, I love the outdoors and its variety as much as the next, but I don’t build nests, spawn, and rarely crap in the woods. In other words, yes, I consider humanity first with the hope that we have sense enough to remember the rest. A snail, toad, or fish that might go extinct is not more important to me than a child born to a poor family, anywhere in the world. And I won’t apologize for that position.
We’re back to the 1920s, when progressives dreamed of a powerful enlightened leader unrestrained by democratic hand cuffs creating an ideal society. Everything within the state, nothing outside of the state, nothing against the state.
When the power of love outweighs the love of power, the world will know peace and prosperity for all.
credit: Jimi Hendrix
Mark Triffitt
Lecturer, Public Policy at University of Melbourne
Travers McLeod
Honorary Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences at University of Melbourne
Political Science and Public Policy. Because real science is just too darn hard!
Thanks, Eric. Climate change paralysis is a good thing, it may give us time to think it over, then vote.
Yep, the way to protect the environment is to get rid of democracy and empower leftist bureaucrats. The terrific environmental record of the Soviet Union and its eastern European client states proves that.
Do I need to say “sarc off”?
We have already started to lose democracy via stealth attack, the EPA and the EU governance.
What will bring the CAGW madness to an end is when ever increasing job losses to Asia and the ever increasing cost of electricity becomes on acceptable to the general public.
I think what they mean about democracy goes back to the failed vote on the U.S. carbon tax. It did not proceed because the switchboard lit up in way like no other issue before it. It was one over reach too far. They are still focused on getting that vote back and you can see that intent in the collective drum beat in every manipulated agency and institution out there today. So the EPA carbon regs initiative is just a stepping stone and not the end of the drive. It is your money and that carbon tax that drives them on and on and on. They seek that ring of power above all others.
As for democracy, it depends on your definition of “is” as the Clintons would say. It is that flexible and erasable and shred-able.
I am sure it is merely coincidence that such a seat of power was postulated and argued for well before co2 was a claimed issue. In fact in the 70s a few groups argued we needed similar so humanity could adapt to the coming iceage.
It’s embarassing to see such stupid stuff coming out of Australian academic institutions, even if it is just from a political scientist.