Do we need parties?

Do we need political parties? This is the question raised by New Labour’s funding problems.

The fact is, the two main parties can no longer rely upon a mass of small donations. This gives them three options: to accept big donations/loans, with the suspicion of corruption this entails; to get money from the tax-payer; or to shrink out of business.

Politicians and the MSM would like us to ignore option 3. But there’s a lot to be said for it, because parties do real damage:

1. They stifle debate. Not just explicitly, via three-line whips and the threat of deselection, but implicitly, as MPs believe toeing the line is the road to career advancement.

2. They’re hierarchic. This encourages us to look to leaders to help us, rather than solve problems ourselves.

3. Both main parties – perhaps because of their outmoded hierarchical nature – share a similar managerialist ideology. For me, though, the most important political question is: can political and economic institutions be re-organized on non-managerialist lines? Party politics forces this issue off the agenda.

4. Important issues often cut across party lines. The divisions over Iraq or civil liberties, for example, don’t map neatly into party lines.

5. The Labour-Tory divide made sense when class alignment dominated politics – when unions vs management was a big issue, and when people felt instinctive class loyalties. Now we are (sadly?) no longer in this world, what do parties stand for?

Maybe then, we should welcome the shriveling, for want of funds, of parties.

What could replace them? Direct democracy for one thing. And/or a group of loose coalitions. I like to think that, in future, parliamentary politics will look not like two entrenched positions (which are essentially the same), but more like variations on a Venn diagram.

Comments

[Simstim]

I think you might overstating the role of numerous small donations in the past finances of the big parties. The Conservatives have always been the recipient of funds from big business and of course Labour had their equivalent in the unions. Perhaps the crisis in party funding is more to do with these particular relationships than with a general decline in small personal donations.

I'd suggest that the decline in party membership has had more of a financial impact by depriving the parties of a large pool of volunteer labour that they then have to replace through the use of advertising, PR consultants, etc.

[Paul Davies]

Re point 2 "They’re hierarchic. This encourages us to look to leaders to help us, rather than solve problems ourselves."

Are people unwilling to look for answers themselves because the system is hierarchic, or is the system hierarchic because people are generally unwilling to think? I fear the latter.

[OneEyedMan]

Direct democracy stinks.

1) It puts even more power in the hands of those with more time to vote and consider political matters like the rich and the elderly

2) Who will control the agenda? If we vote on every issue on a first come, first serve basis, how will deal with the most pressing matters? If somone has the athority to control the agenda, then Romer showed that this results in the agenda setter having unlimited ability to set policy.

[MatGB]

Agree with One Eyed Man; direct democracy leads to great thinkers drinking hemlock at the whim of the populace.

Parties are a useful tool for grouping and predicting a candidate along broad lines. two-party politics is deeply flawed, the old left / right class alignment is dying, but use a system that allows for better choice and distinction.

Will do point by point reply when I've time, hopefully tomorrow evening.