BF2S Forums A Democracy Without Political Parties... Could It Work?

Skorpy-chan wrote:

Democracy only works because the parties oppose each other and stop things from getting done on a wide scale. Single-party states get things done.
Such as invading france. England and Germany have a history of doing that when they get one strong ruler and no opposition. The soviet union ran itself into the ground. North Korea is being threatened by the US for having missiles. Iraq is a warzone.

We need political parties so politics happens on a scale longer than terms of office. God forbid someone DOES something, that messes everything up.

That's a dictatorship or a monarch style of government and I'm meaning a 100% democracy.  If there was no dictator or monarch style leader and all voices in government held equal weight it might get more done simply because partisanship wouldn't be a factor.  Take away a large part of the reasons things don't get passed simply because a party has to be an opposition and you'd be left with 51% of the vote and a notion passes otherwise it fails.  Idealistic maybe but it would be nice imo.

FEOS wrote:

The fallacy of parties now is that the politicians are more endebted to The Party than to their constituents. That is a damn shame. In that regard, doing away with political parties would be a plus...the politicians would be answerable only to the electorate.

I was actually thinking about this last night. Is there a way that the US Legislative branch could be revamped to make the two parties less influential? But I kept coming back to the Bill of Rights, and how can it be done without infringing upon those? What about the other, less influential, parties out there?

one of the rare occasions when I agree with FEOS. Most elected party members care only about one thing: re-election. Party politics play a major role in their everyday lifes, and often the will of the electorate is being ignored for selfish reasons.

Basic democracies ( greece ) worked without any form of political party. The people voted on the issues, and chose their representatives on the basis of each candidate's merits. But this was only possible, because the majority of the people actually cared about politics. They wanted to be involved.

These days, however, people are so tired of the lobbyism and the party politics that they can't really be bothered to get their asses off their couches and vote. But would it be any better if there were no political parties at all ? At least those try to reach out to the people and get them involved.

As far as the aforementioned two party system in the US is concerned, I would agree that it is holding you back somewhat. It tends to over-simplify political issues, basically saying that there are only two solutions to any given problem, republican or democratic.
Problems are being adressed on the basis of party politics only, i.e. "what do the democrats say", "what do the republicans say".

I guess what I am saying is it that two parties are not enough to appropriately represent a nation that is so diverse as the US.

In theory, a democracy without political parties could work, but only in a nation where the majority of the poeple actually care about politics.

DesertFox- wrote:

Ender2309 wrote:

back when america was a wee baby, there were no political parties. it worked, parties were eventually born, and all went to hell.

Sure there were. Parties always existed. Recall your Federalists and Democratic Republicans for one.

I had a similar idea at one time though, that the nation would be better off without political parties. However, I began to learn more and more about how parties, lobbyists, and interest groups influence the policy made and saw that they were an essential linkage institution between the people and government. The government and its associated groups get a bad rap for stupid reasons. The real life pictures is much less bleak than what some would have us believe.

I have a few essays collected on this topic; I'll see if I can find them.

those had a late birth. Washington and Madison's presidential eras were ungoverned by parties. it was during jeffersons presidency that parties came about.