Rethinking Lifestyle

Recently I was reading a book written in the 1950s but set in the 1980s. The author was imagining the political situation 30 years into his future. In the novel many countries had adopted a multiple voting system whereby people could have up to seven votes, and these countries were far ahead economically than those countries that had stuck to one-man one-vote. The extra votes were for a variety of things but without re-reading the book I cannot remember them all, though I do remember some. For example, if a person had a university degree or some other form of higher education, that person received an extra vote. Similarly if a person had travelled widely and lived abroad for a period of time, they could get another vote for that. Also for starting and managing a successful business, another vote. The theory was that this form of electing members of Parliament resulted in a much more responsible government.

Paraphrasing the author’s words, he said that the one-man one-vote system created the most greedy form of government because the power was in the hands of the common man/woman and the common man/woman consistently votes to increase his own standard of living, regardless of the long-term interests of his children and his country. This was written before climate change and global warming was recognized as a problem, but no doubt if the author was writing today he would include ‘regardless of the long-term interests of the planet’.

Today, almost seventy years since this author’s speculation about the future, it seems he was right. Successive governments have spent, promised, or ‘bribed’ (call it what you want) in order to get re-elected. Today just in Manitoba we have an accumulated Manitoba government debt of approx. $24 billion of which your share is $19000. In addition our present government is still borrowing millions every year to finance a deficit of almost $1 billion, all which will have to be repaid sooner or later. As the author said 70 years ago, one-man one-vote creates a government that acts with little thoughts for the future, and today we are living with the problems that that system has created over the years. We hear about ‘leading by example’. Perhaps the huge debt that most people carry these days is as a result of following the example of our so-called leaders. Frankly I don’t think they set a good example, do you?

I am not advocating a change to a multiple vote system here, but in Canada we have been talking about electoral reform for years, the most popular suggestion being proportional representation. I’m not sure if those countries that currently have proportional representation are better governed than those without, and it would be interesting to find out. However I understand that in those countries with a proportional representation system, voter turnout is very much higher. The reason for the high voter turnout is that even if your candidate doesn’t get the most votes there is still a possibility that he will end up in Parliament.

What we need is a revolution. Not a bloody revolution with guns blazing, but a social revolution where we can elect a better form of government and better representatives who will look at the long term rather than make expensive promises just to get re-elected at the next election. I am writing this article now particularly because there is no election in the near future. I hope it will give you an opportunity to think about our current elected representatives and our system of voting them in.

I agree, both that our government representatives think too short term and that our electoral system encourages short term thinking. This is crazy. It leads to the deficit spending David speaks of, but, more serious in my opinion, it also encourages politicians to think short-term with respect to environmental issues.

~ Eric Rempel, SETI Editor