The Non-Transitive Voting Paradox

It was around this time of the year that we used to hold the elections for the club president. There are many who scoff at the need for such things and it is true that today most members prefer a much more egalitarian approach to membership and would shy away from any suggestion of a club hierarchy. But it was not always so. There have been 29 successive presidents of the Diogenes Club as indicated on the plaque on the library wall. But that all came to an end the year the elections took a strange turn.

Three people stood for president that year, Anstruther, Baldwin and Caldwell. A poll showed that there was almost equal support for each of the three candidates. One third of the members rated the candidates in order of preference A, B then C. Another third of the members rated the candidates in order of preference B, C then A. The last third of the members rated the candidates in order of preference C, A then B.

ORDER OF PREFERENCE
1/3 A, B, C
1/3 B, C, A
1/3 C, A, B

As a consequence Anstruthers quite rightly claimed that 2/3 of members preferred him to Baldwin. Baldwin claimed that 2/3 of members preferred him to Caldwell. And Caldwell claimed that 2/3 of members preferred him to Anstruthers. And the truth is they were all absolutely correct.

And there in a nutshell was the problem. The more deep thinking amongst us then realised that a clever committee could decide who would get the post by simply deciding the order of the voting. If they decided to vote first between A and B, then A would win, and the final run off vote between A and C would mean that C would win overall. But if we started off with a first vote between B and C, then B would win and the final runoff vote with A would see A winning. It didn't depend on the members wishes but on who was put forward first.

Well, when the members realised this, then they understood that it meant that the whole democratic voting system was faulty. It was not a problem with the three candidates, but a problem with the system itself. How often has a candidate come in first with less than half of the vote, which meant that more people didn't want him than did.

Every voting system was faulty and the members decided to have nothing more to do with it. So we did what any logical club would do. We did away with voting and with presidents altogether. And much better we have all been for it.

The myth of democracy

The local elections were on Thursday but I didn't vote.

I think I am the only member of the Diogenes Club that takes his cynicism to such an extreme. I am quite sure that some of my fellow Diogenarians would frown on my lack of public spiritedness. I can almost hear the tutting from some of the older more established members over their copies of the Times. After all we live in a democracy, don't we? Our fore-fathers died to give us the vote, didn't they? We are part of the enlightened free world, aren't we?

Well actually, no we don't, no they didn't and no we aren't.

I think the realization came upon me only a couple of years ago. Democracy is a myth. It is a fiction put out by a rather successful government marketing machine. The way I came to this conclusion was simple. I realized one day that really we have no say over anything that is done in our name. Whether it was insane road changes, crazy new education policies, tax laws, petrol rises, speed-trap cameras, planning laws, the siting of wind farms, the issuing of ID cards, internet controls, the extension of 42 day detention without charge, removal of the presumption of innocence, removal of the right not to be tried for the same crime twice, going to war with Iraq..... we have no say over anything. No one asks your opinion, no one takes your views into account. That's how it is in our democracy. We can't change any of these things even if we wanted to. All we can do is get rid of people several years too late, and replace them with people just as bad.

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the will of the people is the only authority for government. But the will of the people is never consulted except at a general election. It is what is called a representative democracy which means that it is the will of others that matters not the will of the people.

What our democracy amounts to is this. You get a chance to make one choice every five years between two or three parties that are almost indistinguishable. And that's it. That's the full extent of your democratic power. You can pick Conservative, Labour or Liberal (or some other less likely possibility) and that's the full size of it. In the States its even worse. You only have Republicans or Democrats to choose from.

You're not allowed to decide what happens yourself, you have to pass that power on to someone else to make all the decisions for you. But they never come back to you to ask what you want to happen. They just do what the party tells them to do.That means that whoever you vote for, the government wins every time.

The only opportunity for democratic choice happens in a referendum when the people are asked to express their will. But time and again these are promised and then refused. Take the EU. Entry into the EU required signature to the Maastrict Treaty. Most were against it. A referendum was refused. More recently the Labour Government promised a referendum on the recent Lisbon Treaty - the EU Constitution under another name. A referendum was refused, basically on the grounds that the people would have voted against it. And so they went ahead without the will of the people. What use is the vote when the will of the people is ignored? Voting is not an expression of power but an admission of powerlessness.

The fact that the technology now exist for everyone to have a say in the decision making process just make the situation less excusable. In the past representational democracy grew up because you couldn't physically fit millions into a simple voting structure that could be used on every decision made. But with the coming of the Internet that has all changed. It is now possible to easily consult every person about the introduction of every law. Should that wind farm be put in the centre of town? Should we build that motorway through that green belt? Should we go to war with Iraq? Or Iran? Well we can now all be consulted because the technology now makes it possible. But I will tell you something. It will never happen. Why? Because we do not live in a democracy. And the few will never give up their power to the many.

So I didn't vote last Thursday. Voting only keeps the charade in play. The game goes on. If nobody voted then the pretense would be over. So vote for nobody, for nobody represents you.