Comparative Gems

Monday, November 28, 2016

Is the Electoral College medieval or modern?



The Presidential election will be decided in the second half of December by the votes of the Electors in the Electoral College.
Unlike the parliamentary system, which exists in most foreign countries, where the majority party elects the prime minister, the majority party in the U.S. Congress does not elect the president. The people do not elect the president. The U.S. does not have participatory democracy.
The Electoral College elects the president.
The Electors of the Electoral College are mostly bound to enact the popular votes. They resemble, in many ways, the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire. For many hundreds of years, that political entity covered Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, the Czech Republic, among other European areas. It had only seven and eventually nine Electors, who elected the Emperor. But like the U.S., it had many states, eventually thousands, which sent representatives to an Imperial Diet. Many of these states extracted more and more liberties so that eventually dozens and dozens of imperial free cities resembled independent republics.
Alexander Hamilton, like most of the Founding Fathers, was well versed in history. No doubt he knew of the massive decentralizing political disunity of the Holy Roman Empire.
He may have worried that a similar process would result in the eventual transmogrification of the original 13 states into independent nations, each with its own currency, legal system, military and customs duties. This would have potentially entailed competing, if not warring, nations in North America! In fact, it was already happening when the original states com-
petitively colonized the West like England had done to the East Coast and when Virginia and Maryland exchanged pot-shots across their boundary. To prevent this, the federal government was granted control over the western land and, thus, it colonized the West instead of the states.
Though it isn't given much attention, Hamilton's objective was the prevention of what could have happened. He pushed various policies to enhance the unity of the 13 states and centralize control over the disunited states through a strengthened federal government.
The Founding Fathers knew that the British Parliament was putting the pressure on the colonies.
Parliament was imposing taxation without representation. It was offending the colonies far more than the king did. Parliament was using them for the benefit of the British elite merchant class which controlled parliament.
No surprise then that the parliamentary system was not emulated by Hamilton and the Founding Fathers.
On the other hand, Hamilton and the Founding Fathers, with the exception of Jefferson, were also afraid of popular democracy and participatory democracy. In fact, many viewed democracy as a form of 'mob rule.'
The current campaign provided some proof for that notion.
Consequently, Hamilton advocated an Electoral College to elect the president. It would restrain unlimited participatory democracy while offering democratic features and methods to enact the popular will.
The creation of the Electoral College was also thought to minimize political mischief and provide stability through the wise guidance of responsible and educated politicians.
Relevant to this view is the turgid but provocative book, 'Democracy: The God That Failed,' by retired University of Nevada economist H. H. Hoppe. He submits the shocking notion that economic productivity declines in all democracies since people become conditioned to expect rewards through politics rather than through economic activities.
Hamilton would have agreed with Hoppe.
On the other hand, Jefferson resented such notions. He, in fact, was hoping for periodic rebellions, if not revolutions, so that the tree of liberty would be watered. He viewed the elites using politics for their gain as the British merchants had done.
Howard Zinn's book! 'A People's History of the United States' supports Jefferson. Oddly enough, both Hamilton and Jefferson had valid points.
But ethics is always infinitely more important than any political structure and/or political participation. Just like the business elite controlled the British Parliament, so America's elite controlled the Electoral College as well as Congress. Just like Britain colonized the East Coast, so the U.S. colonized the West. No surprise that Jefferson's hope of having periodic rebellions showed up in thousands of bloody, if not murderous strikes, ethnic cleansing of the natives and some 250 slave uprisings which most conventional history books do not or cannot cover sufficiently.
No surprise that a Las Vegas billionaire casino mogul, Sheldon Adelson, is the top contributor in this election campaign. He donated at least 95 million. No surprise that Putin, representing Russia's ruling billionaires, has expressed endorsement for our billionaire candidate.
Since the collapse of communism, Russia has been controlled by former communist officials who have tasted the bountiful offerings of parasitic economic processes. They acquired vast wealth not unlike our Founding Fathers whose estates far outmatched the size of most aristocratic estates in Europe. Four of them controlled half of all land in one of the original states. George Washington himself would outmatch the wealth of most of our current billionaires.
So what is the conclusion regarding the Electoral College and our political history as a whole. It merely proves that politics remains the same no matter where it is or in which historical era it takes place. Those who partake in it attempt to dynasticize it, i.e. see to it that their family members either inherit the top position, too, or at least benefit from it. That pattern is duplicated to a greater or lesser extent in ALL nations and continents around the world and proves that politics is the ONE element which is identical around the globe.
Its patterns are common to and unite all of humanity. Among its rarely understood subtlety is the fact that bad politicians such as Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, etc.
are all perceived by their supporters to have some important good policies which cause them to overlook too often the horrible actions. No surprise that Stalin or for that matter even Churchill are still revered as the second and top politician, respectively, in their countries.
Overlooking shortcomings of the two candidates due to the favored elements they represent showed up significantly in this campaign, too.
In the final analysis, the only method of improving politics is not so much through re-arrangement of structures, though at times that may be helpful, but through ethics. Ethics was THE top element missing in the current campaign. It is likely to be missing, too, in the upcoming actions of the Electoral College. Its absence is also proof that the college is neither medieval nor modern but merely reflective of the constancy of what the nature of politics tends to be.
Sad to say, without ethics a long overdue U.S. economic miracle cannot be achieved.

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