Quote:
Originally Posted by Fourtyrulz
While an early Jefferson denounced political parties, both him and Madison in their later years realized that political parties within a political system are inevitable. Without an organized political body to mobilize voters we never would have even had a constitution (Federalists anyone?) Yes, in early documents the Framers denounce factions and the threat of a tyranny of majority and all that. But in Madison's revisions of The Federalist papers he deems parties "a necessary evil."
In light of that, I think that today the bigger problem is our current dominating two-party and majority-rule system. Just look at what percentage of the people ended up as "losers" in this last election. If we had a proportional system with many parties less people would be dissatisfied with our government and with democracy in general. But this is only part of the problem...read Robert Dahl's book How Democratic is the American Constitution and you might just come to find out the answer is: Not very.
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I would argue that voters, especially in the present, could easily be mobilized without parties. Mass media, which was not present in the times of the Federalists, can much more quickly and easily disperse ideas and information, allowing the people to be more informed, which I believe would increase the chances of participation. Also, I believe that having the chance to elect representatives that could more accurately adhere to the beliefs of the people (as opposed to their party) would make individuals more likely to vote. I see no reason to believe that our established governmental system would fall idle without parties, but feel free to propose some.
The multiparty system would, in my opinion, be a close second best to the no-party system. The only problem I foresee in this system is that I do not believe the parties would have any better of an ideology (at least as to how they run themselves) than they do now, and without any party having a majority, they will easily form alliances with their most similar counterparts to push legislation. The multi-party system in this situation would not be acting much like a multi-party system.