LogFAQs > #946501476

Lightning Strikes posted...

Except literally all that shows is that it doesn't matter how strong your institutions are if the right social conditions exist. That is my entire point.

There is absolutely nothing in the UK system that gives it any kind of stability. It is in reality one of the least stable systems because it has precisely one rule: parliament cannot bind future parliaments. Everything else is entirely in the hands of parliament, it is absolutely sovereign, and not represented by fair democratic systems. It is a disaster waiting to happen, and we're seeing some of that now with the sheer scope of the corruption that is happening. Not fascism, but deep, and more importantly open, corruption and there's nothing anybody can do about it.

The reason these systems lasted so long is because of social conditions, not political systems.

The UK system was much more stable when it was being used as a model for the US. At that point, the House of Lords was an equally powerful house with full veto powers. The King provided another veto point (while King George III never refused assent to any bills passed by the UK Parliament [although he did refuse assent to bills passed by colonial assemblies] it was well understood that he had the right and power to do so). A change to the law required the alignment of the Commons, Lords, and King - all of which had different selection systems. The Commons were elected. The Lords inherited their seats, or the King could create new peers. The Crown was inherited.

That is what the US tried to replicate, and it was successful. We have 4 centers of power - the House of Representatives (elected by the people directly), the Senate (originally elected by the state legislatures), the President (elected by the electoral college), and the Supreme Court (chosen by the President and Senate together). The point is not to be fair, but to provide stability by making it very hard to change the law.

By contrast, revolutionary France and Weimar Germany had one, all-powerful institution - the National Assembly for France and the Reichstag for Germany, with the Presidency in Germany holding some additional power but nothing like veto power over the Reichstag. And those systems collapsed on timescales orders of magnitude faster. And yes, the UK today has this problem, but it's only been 109 years since the Lords lost its absolute right of veto and only 20-something years since the selection process for the Lords was dramatically changed. As recently as Edward VII, it was contemplated that the cabinet might all resign because the King rejected their advice.

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