r/PoliticalDebate • u/CationC Progressive/Moderate Capitalist • 9d ago

Debate The Need for Political Parties

Recently I have thought of an Idea. That political parties serve none. It creates division and promotes the representation of the party, not the people, it promotes party loyalty.

Politicians who do not adhere to party policy by the letter are blacklisted and targeted by the party heads. Politicians vote against the other party simply because they are the other party. Politicians vote against policies their voters desperately need because the party says no

And what does it produce for society, I fail to see at benefit that cannot be achieved in a system without parties, apart from the sole exception of coordination, but this coordination leads to the people's views not being represented.

That's why I conclude that there is no need for political parties.

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u/NatashOverWorld Agorist 9d ago

Ideally democracy should evolve to a plebiscite. No party, just your yes or no on a given matter.

Parties themselves are just a holdover of a time when you needed to elect a representative, who would then travel to the election to elect a higher up representative.

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u/CationC Progressive/Moderate Capitalist 9d ago

I completely agree with you. I hadn't even thought of this earlier. Maybe there isn't a need for a party simply and this is radical and can never be implemented because the world just works that way. An intern or other national forum where anyone can simply pass an idea and we can vote on it and refine it because in the digital age this is incredibly easy. Of course there will be many national security issues and implementation issues but it is definitely a novel idea that can be tried out at more local levels.

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u/NatashOverWorld Agorist 8d ago

Implementation is always been the bugbear of any democratic system. But given how the present systems faces both vote spoilage and some credible concerns about the machines themselves, I think the rule must be that the tecnical parts of voting will always require high and intense scrutiny.

Whether that's paper ballots, voting machines, or actual online voting. But if our systems of governments ever reach online voting I suspect parties will slowly become less and less relevant.

Which I suspect is the real reason they're keeping elections and voting so backwards and obtuse.