Oh hell yeah. Even Washington thought we shouldn’t have political parties, and I’ve agreed with that sentiment since I learned about it in 5th or 6th grade.
I don’t know how you would go about banning parties. You would have to ban almost all forms of cooperation.
I agree with Madison that you can’t treat the causes of factionalism, you can only mitigate its effects. Madison argued a large government with many members makes it harder for one faction to seize a majority.
Unfortunately, the founding fathers fucked up bad when they chose first-past-the-post/plurality as the voting system. Social choice theory shows that plurality voting will naturally gravitate towards a two party system. No third party can get a single toe in the door because of the spoiler effect. Plurality’s only benefit is its simplicity, everything else about it is somewhere between bad and horrifying.
Oh hell yeah. Even Washington thought we shouldn’t have political parties, and I’ve agreed with that sentiment since I learned about it in 5th or 6th grade.
I don’t know how you would go about banning parties. You would have to ban almost all forms of cooperation.
I agree with Madison that you can’t treat the causes of factionalism, you can only mitigate its effects. Madison argued a large government with many members makes it harder for one faction to seize a majority.
Unfortunately, the founding fathers fucked up bad when they chose first-past-the-post/plurality as the voting system. Social choice theory shows that plurality voting will naturally gravitate towards a two party system. No third party can get a single toe in the door because of the spoiler effect. Plurality’s only benefit is its simplicity, everything else about it is somewhere between bad and horrifying.