Letter to IAOS, RSS, ASA, SFdS and IARIW

To the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS),
Royal Statistical Society (RSS),
American Statistical Association (ASA),
Société Française de Statistique (SFdS) and
International Association for Research in Income and Wealth (IARIW)

Dear presidents Pullinger (IAOS), Ashby (RSS), Martinez (ASA), Marin (SFdS) and Reinsdorf (IARIW),

Your societies and associations have made public statements in support of Andreas Georgiou, former president of El.Stat Statistics Greece.

I have looked at the case and arrived at the conclusion that Georgiou was guilty as charged for the violation of duty, as was indeed confirmed by the Greek Supreme Court in 2018. It appears that Andreas Georgiou, Hallgrimur Snorrason (representative of Eurostat at El.Stat in 2010) and Walter Radermacher (Eurostat 2008-2016) have provided you with false testimonies about the Greek law of March 9 2010 that created El.Stat and the European Code of Practice of 2005 that was in force in 2010. They knew about the true legal situation and in fact worked to make changes in both the law (December 2010) and the Code (2011).

The documentation is in my new book “Forum Theory & A National Assembly of Science and Learning“. My discussion of the actual figures in national accounting of Greece 2009 is on pages 200-206, and there seem to have been made some arbitrary choices that are not fully clear to me. My discussion identifies many more points where important information is lacking. Overall, I advise that there will be a thorough investigation. I hope that you will indeed apply due diligence.

I already informed ISI and FENStatS via this letter, now online in slightly edited form to make it quotable for others. I regard the now online letter to ISI and FENStatS as an integral part of my letter to you now. I have the same requests for you as stated in that letter. Please inform your membership but please refer to my book instead of trying to rephrase the points in your own words because points might get lost in translation again. This letter to you is online now too.

Reading parts of my book, Richard Gill, emeritus professor in mathematical statistics in Leiden, and former chair of VVSOR (a founding member of FENStatS), informed me that he has revised his view, from an earlier signing of support to a (now disputed) statement by ISI. Klaus Kastner, retired banker who blogs on Greece, also has revised part of his view.

My disclaimer: I would like to see a thorough investigation in Dutch economics.

Sincerely yours,

Thomas Cool / Thomas Colignatus
Econometrician (Groningen 1982) and teacher of mathematics (Leiden 2008)
Scheveningen, Holland
http://thomascool.eu/
http://econpapers.repec.org/RAS/pco170.htm
https://zenodo.org/communities/re-engineering-math-ed

PS. At IARIW, Peter van de Ven (formerly CBS now OECD) was IARIW president in 2010-2012, when the issue of El.Stat case arose. Van de Ven proposed to IARIW in 2016 to support Georgiou, apparently with deficient study of the underlying events. At CBS in 2009, Van de Ven removed the Tinbergen & Hueting figure of environmentally Sustainable National Income (eSNI) from the Dutch monitor on sustainability, using fallacies, see THAENAES Chapter 25 p289. I copy to Van de Ven at OECD and Kees Zeelenberg at CBS who is involved in IAOS – OECD.

Let scientists and scholars create their National Assembly of Science and Learning

Science and scholarship are much appreciated in our societies when we consider the lavish funding by tax payers and private donors. In contrast there is also a structurally weak position in the very functioning of our democracy. Our best research minds are allowed to discover the wonders at the frontier of knowledge but their findings might not be actually used. In examples like climate change, overpopulation, miseducation, inequality, political science of electoral systems, and the revolutions in computing, biology and medicine, and so on, and even in the issue of Greek statistics of the national debt and deficit of Greece around 2009, we see that science and learning are hardly listened to, and that policy makers and opinion leaders follow their own illusions, leading the world towards foreseeable disasters. Humanity as a whole acts mindless, drunk or crazy.

Trias Politica versus Tessares Politica

There is a system to the madness. Our democracy has the Trias Politica separation of powers between de Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary branches of government. What is lacking is the Epistemic branch. This means that the Trias Politica model allows too much room for manipulation of information. The alternative is a High Definition Democracy that has this Epistemic branch to protect information. This would give a Tessares Politica – from the ancient Greek “foursome”.

Epistemic branch

The Epistemic branch has two elements.

• The first aspect concerns economic planning and the management of the State. The national budget is crucial for policy making. The Legislative branch or Parliament votes on the national budget to authorise the Executive to tax and spend funds. The economic planning agency resides currently under the Executive. However, planning is systematically abused. We better create an Economic Supreme Court at the same constitutional level, with the task to control the quality of information, and the power to veto the budget if it contains misleading information according to the court. This leaves all freedom for politicians to determine policy but they will lose the room they have now for manipulating information.
• The second aspect concerns all fields of research. Parliament currently has the Senate and the House of Commons. In the French Revolution of 1789 the Chamber of the Clergy was abolished. In an alternative path of history, the clergy could have developed into scientists and scholars, and the revolution avoided, and then nowadays we would have a Chamber for Science and Learning.

If we want to improve the world and democracy then these are the two structural positions to consider.

Forum Theory

Forum theory is the approach by the Dutch cognitive psychologist, student-achievement tester, methodologist and philosopher of science Adriaan de Groot (1914-2006), also famous for his study of chess grandmasters. Forum theory provides us with the diagnosis that science and learning operate as a forum, i.e. a market subject to particular conditions. The approach investigates processes that enhance quality of science and learning, and formulates ways to protect and encourage those. Forum theory suggests that science and learning will be improved by a National Assembly. This contrasts with the current dominance by the National Academies of Science and Scholarship.

Such Academies tend to consists of mainly elderly researchers who have made their mark years ago and who are selected by co-optation. This leaves the mass of researchers out of the picture, currently at the front of research and making their mark. The common researchers on the work floor, e.g. in the laboratory or at the computer terminal, are locked up between a stone wall and a firy pit, and tend to be quite frustrated that the existing knowledge is neglected or misrepresented by politics, while the elevated colleagues at the Academy tend to focus on their next conference. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) in his Gulliver’s Travels already made fun of the Royal Society.

This situation can be changed by the creation of a National Assembly of Science and Learning, with a Floor for the mass of researchers, while the National Academy forms the Senate of the Assembly. The Assembly improves governance of the forum, the forum itself, and research integrity. Researchers in science and learning can create their National Assembly actually quite simply. They can set up a foundation, give rules of operation, recruit members, organise elections and have a constitutional meeting. With sufficiently large membership the operating costs can be covered. The next step is to show results.

The difference between the current Academy and the sketched Assembly is that the latter has the full weight of the collected research body in a country, with the legitimacy of having been elected by them. The Assembly can do investigations and support conclusions, and speak for science and learning with an authority that now is lacking for the Academy. Over time Parliament could accept the National Assembly of Science and Learning as its third chamber, e.g. called The Study.

Greek national accounting and statistics in 2010

My book with above analysis and proposal also looks at the example of 2010, when Statistics Greece (El.Stat) director Andreas Georgiou sent figures on the 2009 Greek national debt and budget deficit to Eurostat without first seeking approval by his board. The Greek court system judged that he was in violation of duty, irrevocably by the Greek Supreme Court in 2018. Today there is an international uproar in national accounting and statistics that Georgiou’s conviction is a miscarriage of justice and an attack on the independence of Official Statistics.

However, these protesting statistical societies and associations have failed to check the Greek law of March 2010 that created El.Stat, and they also refer to the European Statistics Code of Practice of 2011 or 2017 while the code in force in 2010 was from 2005. Georgiou is guilty as charged.

By all looks of it, he also – advised by Eurostat – added the Simitis swaps of 2001 to the deficits, thus increasing the deficit of 2009 by about 2% points, instead of using the proper stock-flow adjustment. The deficit figure has the purpose to show the operating difference between income and expenditure, and is not the place to record hidden debts that fall from the closet. It is remarkable that these sobering points have not been recognised in all comments and protests. Also the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal supported Georgiou while overlooking these facts.

People can bet their reputation on false information though. Georgiou and the leadership of Eurostat knew about the Greek law of March 2010 and the Code of Practice of 2005, because it was their job to know this at the time. In 2010 they even undertook a change of those very regulations. They however did not say so to the courts and their international colleagues.

Instead, board member and professor of econometrics Zoe Georganta, while lacking full information because of Georgiou’s obstruction, still pointed to crucial questions on content, and those were considered by the Greek courts but inadequately treated by those protesting statisticians and media.

Impact on the EU statistical system

Cause for worry is that the European Union has now restructured its statistical system so that each national statistical office has a single head with full authority, while we know that a single person is much more sensitive to political or commercial pressure or own illusions than a multiperson board.

Warranting the quality of scientific and learned information

This is one of more information scandals that my book deconstructs. The Greek case is peanuts compared to the discussion about climate change. Overall, the world is served not only by a better position of science and learning in our system of democracy, but also by a better internal functioning of the forum of science and learning itself. There is a clear need for a National Assembly of Science and Learning that can investigate such issues without interference by political interests and mistaken hierarchies that exist now.

Thomas Colignatus is the scientific name of Thomas Cool (1954), econometrician (Groningen 1982) and teacher of mathematics (Leiden 2008). See the book “Forum Theory & A National Assembly of Science and Learning” (2020) at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/98568 and on his website http://thomascool.eu

Brexit without the will of the people

Today, January 31 2020, at midnight Central European Time, Brexit will happen, even though it is unclear what the British voters think about it. Brexit is neither “by the will of the people” nor “against the will of the people” but merely “without the will of the people“.

A proto-democracy generates uncertainty

The UK is only a proto-democracy and no proper democracy, see this evaluation in the APS Newsletter Physics and Society, January 2020, p18-24, which looks at the USA but the argument for the UK is quite similar.

On Brexit, uncertainty abounds:

• The Brexit Referendum Question of 2016 was a political manipulation and unacceptable for a decent statistical questionnaire, see here p14. The situation was “garbage in, garbage out”, with ample opportunity for populism.
• The UK preferences were rather dispersed about the options for Leave or Remain, see here p6.
• See my summary about Brexit’s deep roots in confusion on democracy and statistics p18.
• The UK election of December 12 was for the House of Parliament and not about Brexit. Boris Johnson had all candidates for the Conservative Party pledge to support Brexit, which runs against the principle that members of the House must represent their district. These elections thus violate the very principle of the UK proto-democracy.

The UK proto-democracy has “district representation” with “first past the post“, which means that a party may get a majority in the House of Parliament without a majority in the electorate. In the UK 44% voted for the conservatives but they still got 56% of the seats. Thus 56% of the UK voters do not want a government by the Conservatives.

Thus we still do not know what voters think about Brexit too. While Brexit was much discussed, and caused voters to switch to the Conservative Party, it still was not the only issue on the table, and it still is unclear what voters think about Brexit on balance.

The UK has the curious phenomenon of the “Re-Leavers”. These voters chose Remain in 2016 but now switch to Leave merely because this was the majority outcome in the referendum, and they “want to respect the outcome”. However, this is not how democracy works. A vote is about what you think yourself and not about what the former outcome was. Obviously these Re-Leavers are free to exercise their democratic right to think whatever they want, but this kind of thinking destroys the possibility to determine what people actually want.

YouGov tracker

The YouGov tracker is the best summary information about the general sentiment on the issue, but it is a poll and no electoral statement. Let me quote the tracking at this moment, because it always changes:

Between party dynamics

Adam McDonnell and Chris Curtis of YouGov discuss a post-election survey of December 17 2019, and here are their underlying data (for us page 3). The dynamics between the UK parties are remarkably large. Their key graph for our purposes is the following. For example 27% (figure not printed) of the Conservatives voted Remain in 2016: 22% (shown) of those switch to the LibDem, likely because LibDem are Remain. However, 65% of the Remain Conservatives stick to their party, perhaps because they regard the issue less relevant than other issue of the Conservatives, or perhaps they are ReLeavers. Of the LibDem who voted Leave in 2016 still 46% voted LibDem though it had become a Remain party, perhaps because they thought that LibDem would not gain power anyway.

Labour and LibDem could have made a deal to oppose the Conservative candidates with only one candidate from Labour / LibDem, in proportion to the forecasted vote shares. In that case, the LibDem could have assured a referendum on Brexit. During the elections, Jeremy Corbyn was criticised that he did not take a stand on Brexit, but his party was clearly divided, and his offer of a referendum was a fair option. At most five years from now there will be new elections. These are the Conservative “battlegrounds“, where this party could lose a seat by small number of voters.

Beware of John Curtice

John Curtice’s diagnosis on Channel 4, November 27, was:

“This is pretty much a binary election. Hung parliament, then we’re almost undoubtedly heading towards an extension and a second referendum, and lord knows what the outcome of that will be. Or we get a majority and we go out on January 31 and Boris is charged with the task of negotiating an alternative outcome. Ironically at the end of the day we’ve kind of stumbled into this election, but as the way it’s turning out, it’s actually providing us with a fairly clear binary choice.”

The latter is clearly nonsense, already before the election outcome. Above dynamics of UK voters shows that voters did not see a binary vote on Brexit and clearly had various considerations other than Brexit.

John Curtice is a renowned professor who on Election nights predicts the district outcomes with amazing accuracy. The problem however is that Curtice doesn’t see or explain that the true problem for the UK lies in the lack of equal proportionality in the general election. Curtice is locked in his electoral worldview like a hamster in a running wheel. Whatever he thinks and says here is in service of the current disproportionate electoral system in the UK, and then still produces nonsense.

In sum, it is the current electoral system that created the mess on Brexit and its misleading referendum question in 2016. If the UK had had equal proportional representation (EPR) like in Holland to start with, then Nigel Farage could have gotten his 12,5% of the seats in the House, and then the political discussion would have had greater restraint on the truth of the matter.

Brexit is still a mess, and now the eggs are scrambled

The solution for the present mess lies not in a new referendum on Brexit, as Curtice accepts, but in equal proportional representation (EPR). Referendum questions are manipulative, and voters cannot negotiate in polling stations. With EPR, representatives in the House can deconstruct manipulation and can negotiate. The current UK system gives only district winners, and they may be locked to a party line and cannot represent the diversity of views within their districts. The latter was already a fairy tale in 1900 and even more in 2020. Again, see my evaluation in the APS Newsletter Physics and Society.

Let the UK reboot itself. A big problem for UK voters now is: if the UK would rejoin the EU then it would have to accept the euro.

Apologies for Brexit misconduct by the EU27

In The Guardian, 2018-12-13, historian Timothy Garton Ash asks the EU27:

“(…) all we need from you, my friends, is a clear, simple, positive message, without ifs or buts: “We want you to stay!””

The EU27 already said this, before this plea actually. Yet, let me offer my fellow citizen apologies to the British people for the misconduct by the EU27 leadership. The EU27 has not been clear enough. It has allowed itself to get infected by the irresponsibility by the UK leadership.

An issue between Member States

The EU is a union of Member States and an arrangement between governments. The EU is no usual democracy with a direct relationship between EU citizens and their collective EU government. The EU27 regard Brexit as an internal affair of the UK. EU President Donald Tusk chairs meetings of government leaders, and would see himself entirely out of place when he would tour the UK and have Town Hall sessions trying to resolve misunderstandings and pleading the common cause. Brexiteers would accuse him of meddling in internal affairs, and Tusk could only confirm this. Many Britons would see him as another Pole who should depart as soon as possible, even when he would be excellent at taking care at hospital beds or fixing the plumbing.

Clear and convincing evidence that the UK is under the spell of populism

The 2016 Referendum is clear and convincing evidence, acceptable in a decent criminal court, that the UK is under the spell of populism. In proper democracy it is Parliament that decides such issues. Who studies the mathematics of democracy can better appreciate the history that it are mostly demagogues and incompetents who resort to referenda to create the illusion as if the “will of the people” has been called upon. The 2016 Referendum was an exercise in populist lunacy and the UK government has been irresponsible concerning it. Prime Minister Theresa May clearly doesn’t have the background to understand this. In this particular respect she is no better than Silvio Berlusconi though with a feeling for understatement and a stiff upper lip, and she rather follows populism in the UK instead of steering her country out of it.

Stab-in-the-Back Myth

In this political setting, anything that the EU27 says can and basically will be used against it. The EU27 has been cautious about the risk of a Stab-in-the-Back Myth that the EU27 would be at fault for the mess that the UK is in and could be in for coming decades. When the EU27 would state with more emphasis that it would rather have the UK remain, like Garton Ash suggests, then this would likely be misrepresented as a ploy to lure the virgin UK into a place of darkness and unspeakable horror.

Take the bull by the horns

In real politik the EU27 accepted that a Member State succombed to populism. They should have been wiser. Alongside the unavoidable negotiations, the EU27 should also have discussed How to Deal with Populism in a Member State. EU scientists with basic impartiality in Town Hall meetings could have invited Britons to see this true diagnosis and monster eye to eye. It is still not too late. I myself have looked into the deeper causes of Brexit. My finding is that Britons think that they have democracy while the UK has only proto-democracy. The UK has district representation instead of equal proportionality. The UK system has been causing problems in the UK for a good part of last century, and Brexit is only a culmination.

A second referendum is populism all-over again

Garton Ash’s second referendum is populist irresponsibility all-over again. He neglects the evidence of the 2016 disaster and believes in a heaven of well designed referenda that disclose the “will of the people” like an Oracle of Delphi. His world view is locked in proto-democracy, and he doesn’t even notice the prison walls.

The advice is a moratorium

My suggestion is a Moratorium on Brexit of two years, so that the UK can discuss and improve its democracy. See the former weblog entry.

 

Wikimedia commons May and Berlusconi

A Brexit moratorium of two years for UK and EU to 2021

A Brexit moratorium of two years is the best advice today that econometrics can offer the UK and EU. Two years are only a short period with respect to the long future ahead. After two years of misinformation the UK and EU better make room for two years of proper information.

The difference between a flat Earth and a sphere

My background is in econometrics, Political Economy and Public Choice, and the latter is “the use of economic tools to deal with traditional problems of political science” (Gordon Tullock 1987). The Brexit referendum outcome in 2016 caused me to look deeper into its causes. In August 2017 I discovered that “political science on electoral systems” (including referenda) still is locked in the humanities and thus pseudo-science. For its claims on reality this branch is comparable to astrology, alchemy and homeopathy. This branch has been misinforming the world for a good part of last century.

The Great Depression in the 1930s came about because economists had confusions about the gold standard and such. Now we have a similar situation with respect to this branch of political science. This discovery on “political science on electoral systems” compares to the distinction between a flat Earth and a sphere. It means that all evidence must be re-evaluated.

If you wonder where failing government in the USA, UK or France comes from, then include this misinformation and miseducation as a fundamental factor. Brexit is an example of a democracy running astray because of this misinformation. The deeper cause of Brexit is that the House of Commons and the electorate are misinformed by the academia. There is a grand scale of misinformation by famous UK scholars like Iain McLean, John Curtice, Simon Hix, younger Alan Renwick, and (other) members of the UK Political Studies Association and lack of critique by the UK Royal Statistical Society.

For the National Academia of Sciences and Humanities of the world I propose that they set up their own national buddy systems, consisting of both scientists and scholars on democracy and electoral systems. Scientists tend to be less interested in democracy and scholars are at a distance from empirics, so that buddies can support each other in commitment to study and in bridging gaps of understanding.

The evidence is in my paper “One woman, one vote. Though not in the USA, UK and France” (MPRA 84482, 2018). The buddies perhaps better start with the novel statistics on the USA midterm 2018 and the SDID measure on disproportionality.

Cold Civil War in the UK

Many Britons are dead-tired of the Brexit discussion and want a clean break of it. The term Cold Civil War has been used. Rather than force a decision down each other’s throat on the three available options, it is better to kick the can down the road, and have a time-out to reconsider how the UK got where it is now. The UK better changes the discussion to another topic, away from Brexit, on which the three options are rather clear, and instead onto the foundations, structure and workings of UK democracy itself. The UK appears to be horribly confused on both democracy and statistics, and the people in the UK will gain new energy when they finally would get proper information.

All three options have the risk of a Stab-in-the-Back Myth

Both the EU and prime minister Theresa May have emphasized that there will be no more negotiation. There are three options on the table. Firstly the EU-May deal, secondly the Crash out of the EU, and thirdly a Bregret and return to the Status Quo Ex Ante. All three options come with the risk of a Stab-in-the-Back Myth.

Many UK voters have been dreaming and have been misinformed by all sides. It will be easy for many Britons to blame the EU as the villain who abused virgin Britannia. It will be hard for them to admit that they themselves have been dreaming.

• A stagnation or even a drop in income can be portrayed as punishment by the EU.
• The May-EU deal would fail on the sovereignty a promised by many Brexiteers.
• Bregret would be seen as a betrayal of the referendum outcome.

Cognitive dissonance can be resolved by finding scapegoats, and butchering them in cleansing rituals. The Stab-in-the-Back Myth would not only affect the UK and future EU-UK relations, but Pied Pipers of Hamelin within the EU would also use UK resentment as ‘proof’ that the EU is devious indeed.

This lose-lose outcome exposes the weak spots of international governance. Basically, though, the irresponsibility in the UK has infected the EU. EU policy makers should have known better. They treated Brexit as an issue between Member States but they rather should have cared for EU citizens too, also in the UK, even when this notion of EU citizenship has little legal status. This present discussion provides a solution approach.

Two past years of misinformation, two new years for information

The last two years were burdened by misinformation around the 2016 Brexit Referendum and then there were both secrecy and some open chaos in the subsequent UK-EU negotiations. Voters in the UK are only dimly aware about the logic of the Irish border and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 in this balancing act on national sovereignty and international treaties. Yet the greatest problem lies at a more fundamental level on democracy itself.

Another two years of uncertainty might play into economic stagnation, yet there are many no-regret investments waiting to be done. It really is wisest to take a time-out. This armistice of two more years gives breathing space and appears crucial to clear the fog of war and prevent a Stab-in-the-Back Myth that would play into rancuous backlash in both UK and EU and that could wreak havoc in the future.

How this moratorium can be achieved

The current House of Commons was elected in 2017 and thus after the referendum of 2016, and it would have a mandate to reconsider the situation, even if it would mean breaking promises to voters, which promises clearly cannot be kept with only the present three options on the table. Potentially the EU27 would allow the UK time for such a reconsideration of it is democratic foundations. The recent advice by the ECJ Advocate General provides scope to unilaterally revoke the withdrawal notification (ECJ press release 187/18). However, the EU27 would tend to regard this correct unilateral act with suspicion, and fear for instability in the UK. If the UK would revoke and clarify that it would use a moratorium of two years for a reconsiderations of its democratic foundations, then fears in the EU27 about UK instability and risk about a Stab-in-the-Back Myth against the EU would be assuaged.

After this moratorium of two years, the UK may still leave the EU perhaps in 2021 but at least then this decision would be based upon a clearer understanding in the UK about democracy and statistics.

Not “populism” but kindergarten politics

The 2016 Brexit Referendum Question itself was simplistic and doesn’t fit the requirements for a decent statistical questionnaire. It was political manipulation pure and simple. The Leave vs Remain outcome was 52-48%, but some 17% of voters had Remain between different options of Leave, and thus had to gamble what would be the likely outcome. (RES Newsletter 2018-10) Referenda are mostly dumb and risky, and an instrument of populism instead of deliberative democracy. With this lesson learned, the UK better avoids a second referendum.

Let me quote Cas Mudde who “defined populism as an ideology that considers society to be separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people.” (Guardian 2018-11-22) The term “populism” is distractive though, as if there would be a core of truth in going back to the people, as “ideal democracy”. Cas Mudde struggles with the dictionary and is less observant of what is really happening here, namely kindergarten politics. A division between Us and Them is what kids in kindergarten understand, with a saviour prince on a shiny horse, and it is a core element in blockbuster Hollywood movies. This is what Donald Trump is comfortable with and what his analysts are feeding him with.

The proper answer to this kind of politics is to explain that issues are more complex, and Cas Mudde suggests this too. Complexity however requires time. Both UK and EU can use a moratorium of two years to come to terms with the complexity that we now see on Brexit. The key point is to use this time in an educational manner beyond kindergarten, and thus in a fundamentally different manner than we have seen in the last two years. The misinformation about Brexit not only concerns mere mundane points like on the NHS but also concerns some fundamental aspects by professors from the academia as well.

Weimar and equal proportional representation

This discussion now meets with Godwin’s law. In 1941, Ferdinand Hermens (1906-1998) fled from nazi Germany, found refuge at Notre Dame, Indiana, and published his “Democracy or Anarchy” that argued that the Weimar Republic collapsed because of (equal) proportional representation (EPR). After winning WW2, the USA and UK assumed that their electoral system of district representation (DR) would be superior too. Later research by political scientists has essentially repeated the bias, introducing ever more fallacies.

Historians have debunked Hermens’s analysis. Hitler seized power by using the fire in the Reichstag to arrest communists, eleminating such parliamentarians from voting committees. (Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian 2017) EPR was hindering the nazis, not helping them. Anyway, the choice of electoral system must be made for its own optimality, and other rules would be relevant for such stress tests. Above, I have mentioned the evidence.

A solution for the UK is to switch from DR to EPR

The two year moratorium then could have two phases. When the proposed buddy-system of the Royal Society and the British Science Association (science) and the British Academy (humanities) has generated results and has started informing the general public about their findings, in a first phase, then in a second phase the UK can consider switching from DR to EPR, and have proper elections so that all voices in the UK are duly represented, finally for the first time in history. Parties can split along their Brexit views in order to offer voters the full spectrum. The Stab-in-the-Back Myth has less risk of developing when all people can see the true proportions of the different views on Brexit. With new elections, the House of Commons can finally start from proper proportions to negotiate between parties for a compromise. Compromises would focus on internal UK affairs, since there are no more negotiations with the EU on Brexit.

With this advised solution approach provided by econometrics, it may still be, as said, that the UK leaves the EU perhaps in 2021 but at least then all UK voters have been treated properly, with prudence, justice, dignity and compassion, in equal proportion.

Disclaimer: I did not read “Democracy or Anarchy” and the EU-May Deal, but looked at abstracts. Parts of this text have been used earlier.

UK Parliament on the Boston Tea Party

UK irresponsibility has infected the EU

The EU-May Brexit agreement – between the EU27 and UK prime minister Theresa May of November 25 2018 – makes me think about the French quote: “C’est pire qu’un crime, c’est une faute.”

The EU treats Brexit as an issue between Member States, and thus neglects that Britons are citizens of the EU, perhaps not in a legal sense – see this campaign – but in terms of the ideals why the EU was created in the first place. The EU doesn’t protect these citizens from dysfunction in London. The UK irresponsibility has infected the EU too.

Many will regard the EU-May deal as practical. John Maynard Keynes stated:

“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”

The Great Depression in the 1930s came about because economists had confusions about the gold standard and such. For this 2018 irresponsibility by UK and EU, who are the present academic scribblers ? Today the universities of the world show incompetence or gross negligence in particular on Brexit and in general on “political science on electoral systems” (including referenda). This latter branch at the Academia has been misguiding mankind for the greater part of last century.

The road to reason on Brexit is to observe and tackle this misguidance and mis-education on democracy. The partial rationality of working within EU conventions better is ended. The EU and UK better adopt an inclusive rationality and stop this nonsense and disaster.

UK democracy: Garbage In, Garbage Out

The 2016 Brexit Referendum Question itself did not fit the basic requirements of a statistical questionnaire. Thus we got “garbage in, garbage out” (GIGO). The 2017 UK General Election contest was with the UK system of district representation (DR) instead of equal proportional representation (EPR). The system of DR distorts voter views so that we again have GIGO.

Thus we do not know what UK voters want. It is rather damning for a claimed democracy like the UK that its main two instruments of democracy do not generate clarity on what the people want.

The UK political machinery runs its course but this machinery is proto-democracy based upon GIGO rather than proper democracy. The policy makers themselves have a role too but basically they only add colour to the canvas of history. The true culprits are the Academia that haven’t advised the UK at an early moment last century to switch from DR to EPR. Sweden switched in 1907 and Holland in 1917. Observe that a country with EPR doesn’t need a referendum. Now, what is wrong at the Academia ?

A time-out to investigate the role by the Academia

Let Brussels and London take a time-out on Brexit, and let the Parliaments within the European Union ask questions to their Academia, before decisions are implemented that will wreak havoc on generations to come, and that will undermine the ideals of the European Union. Let Parliaments investigate and expose the role of the Academia on Brexit, and let the Parliaments ask the questions that our collected scientists and scholars better answer, and on which they are dodging their responsibility of disinforming and mis-educating the world.

The evidence is available at MPRA 84482

As an econometrician (Groningen 1982) and teacher of mathematics (Leiden 2008) I may be a lone voice, but I adhere to the principles of science, and fellow scientists can check the evidence that I have collected and made accessible. The evidence is at the Munich Personal RePEc Archive (MPRA) paper 84482.

I have observed that the branch of “political science on electoral systems” (including referenda) is still locked in the humanities, and thus no science, and thus for its empirical claims comparable to astrology, alchemy and homeopathy. I invite the Academia to set up national buddy-systems of scientists and scholars to check the evidence. Scientists tend to know little about democracy. Scholars tend to know little about empirics. Thus buddies can complement each other. Parliaments may encourage the Academia to create such systems.

Readers are advised to start with this summary on the USA midterm 2018 that uses three novel statistical analyses that are missing in the “political science” literature, and that show that more than a third of US voters have taxation without representation, while the Boston Tea Party had the slogan “No taxation without representation”.

Precision of the kilogram versus vagueness of “representative”

Scientists redefined the kilogram recently to greater and perhaps universal precision but the scholars on democracy and politics still use everyday terms like “election” and “representative” of which the meanings depend upon national jurisdictions. A “Head of State” can be a President or a Queen but their roles are different empirically. A key example are (district) representation (DR) in the USA, UK and France and (equal proportional) representation (EPR) in Holland and Scandinavia. An introductory chapter or section of a politicological book tends to explain that these are “different forms of democracy” but when statistical analysis becomes a bit more complicated then the distinction between apples and oranges appears to be forgotten. Scientists know about “garbage in, garbage out”, but the politicological scholars take the everyday language garbage as the undisputed foundation for their treatises and their textbooks to indoctrinate their students. The American Political Science Association (APSA) was founded in 1903 with an aspiration and not with a verified tradition that it was a science. The British Political Studies Association (PSA) has an accurate name but its members may still claim positions as “professor in political science”. Renowned academics pontificate on electoral outcomes and referenda, while not knowing what they are speaking about, with a sprinkling of math, statistics and computers that only suggest science, but they are still scholars locked in the humanities that basically concentrate upon maintaining tradition.

A game-changing insight

This diagnosis may remind of familiar discussions about DR versus EPR. However, it is a game-changing discovery that this branch “political science on electoral systems” is pseudo-science. It is like the difference between a flat Earth and a globe. All claims need to be re-evaluated. This causes the proposal of the buddy-system.

Elephant in the room

Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker for the EU and Theresa May for the UK have clarified that the EU has made its final offer, and that the current UK executive branch agrees with it. A vote by the UK House of Commons is intended for December 10 to 12, with a European Council already scheduled for December 13 and 14. If the UK House of Commons doesn’t take the deal then the UK will crash out of the EU on March 29 2018. If the UK takes it then there still is a transition period with further negotiations. If the transition doesn’t result into a final agreement then the UK will remain in a customs union without a seat at the table. Potentially the UK takes the deal now and crashes out much later anyway, or perhaps re-applies again but then without its current perks.

The present situation creates economic uncertainty. This likely reduces investments and creates stagnation, and this may play into resentment in the UK that the EU sabotages it, even though the UK is itself responsible for the conundrum at the Irish border. There is a serious risk of a Stab-in-the-Back Myth, holding that the original “outcome” of the 2016 Referendum is not respected. This Myth doesn’t recognise that this “outcome” was GIGO, but can still be a myth. Illusions in the UK of “having your cake and eat it” now meet with reality, and rather than accept reality a frustrated people might find it easier to blame the EU.

The EU and UK are surprisingly vague on the option of Bregret, i.e. that the UK retracts the invoking of Article 50. Theresa May mentioned it briefly in the UK House of Commons, and Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have not rejected it. The main reason for this vagueness must be political caution, namely not to spend attention to the elephant in the room. The EU and May (originally for Remain) might be depicted as targeting Bregret by designing a deal that the UK House of Commons would reject. This image would play into the Stab-in-the-Back Myth.

However, it is a Mission Impossible not to speak about Bregret. The topic would surface one way or another. To evade the topic is irresponsible, unless you really accept the prospect of a stagnating and ever more resentful UK, and unless you really believe in a EU of Member States only, without responsibility for Britons who are citizens of the EU too.

Addendum. Owen Jones in The Guardian 2018-11-28 warns about a Stab-in-the-Back Myth whether the UK takes the May-EU deal or rejects it. On December 9 there will be a Great Britain Betrayal protest in London and Jones calls for a counter-march. This again frames the issue as one of political preferences while the true problem is information.

Solution approach

When the proposed buddy-system has generated their findings, it is not unlikely that the UK switches to EPR and can have proper elections so that all voices in the UK are duly represented, finally for the first time. Parties can split along their Brexit views in order to offer voters the full spectrum. The Stab-in-the-Back Myth has less risk of developing when all people can see the true proportions of the different views on Brexit. With new elections, the House of Commons can finally start from proper proportions to negotiate between parties for a compromise. Compromises would focus on internal UK affairs, since there are no more negotiations with the EU. Options are the May-EU deal, Crash, and if possible return to the Status Quo Ex Ante if the EU allows. Potentially the EU would allow the UK time for such a fundamental reconsideration of its system of democracy and relation to the EU.

With this advised solution approach, it may still be that the UK leaves the EU perhaps in 2021 but at least then all votes have been treated properly, with prudence, justice, dignity and compassion, in equal proportion.

Disclaimer: I did not read the EU-May Deal but looked at abstracts.
Some parts of this text have been used earlier.

Angela Merkel throws a tear to Theresa May (Channel 4 screen shot)

Comparing with “A Different Democracy”

The book “A Different Democracy“, Yale 2014, 378 pages, $25, has distinguished political scientists as authors: Steven Taylor, Matthew Shugart, Arend Lijphart & Bernard Grofman. The authors clearly benefit from earlier collaborations. In the background there is the collaboration by Grofman with Rein Taagepera on disproportionality indices, and there is the fore-shadow of the important book “Votes from Seats” (not the other way around !) by Shugart & Taagepera in 2017.

“A Different Democracy” (ADD) is both a study of the US constitution and US democracy and a comparative study with inclusion of 30 other democracies. ADD bridges the gap between US Government courses that somewhat provincially focus on the USA only and Comparative Political Systems courses that discuss the whole world but that apparently tend to overlook the unique character of the USA. In this respect, ADD is also a novel contribution in the search for a presentation that highlights the properties of US democracy in a much better way than in these two conventional courses. It is not quite “America First” but rather “America the Exception”.

ADD is suitable as a refresher study, while it verges on being a textbook because of its low level access, and thus it can be used at the college level in the broad spectrum of courses in art or journalism, but it is no pure textbook because of the lack of pointers and test questions, though each chapter has summary conclusions. Readers with a good memory will notice quite some repetition in the book but this might be useful for novices to the subject.

The interview by Matthijs Bogaards (2015) with Arend Lijphart would be the best introduction into the purposes and the context of ADD. Lijphart:

“Our aim was to make clear to American students that the US is a democracy, but a very different one from other democracies.”

Here I will compare parts of “A Different Democracy” with my analysis of the US Midterm of 2018. In my analysis more than a third of US voters have taxation without representation. The USA is rather an Experimental Democracy or a Proto-Democracy instead of “different”. The purpose of this comparison is to encourage the authors to think about a 2nd edition that improves on the problematic parts identified here.

This is not a discussion on typology. Much of the original work by Arend Lijphart seems to have provoked a discussion in the political science literature that focuses on typology that distracts from evidence based advice on improving democracy. Pellikaan & Doorenspleet (2013) likely provide the best summary of this state of affairs. Typology however is a distraction. There is also a serious research question on ranking democracies by their qualities, see for example the V-Dem project, with a polyarchy index that ranks the USA, UK and France higher than Holland. This however plays into the confusion by Robert A. Dahl on wanting to avoid the vague term “democracy” and rather use a new term “polyarchy” (as opposed to “monarchy” and “oligarchy”), see this critique.

An experimental democracy with huge problems

The crucial observation is that the US Founding Fathers who gathered in Independence Hall from May 25 to September 17, 1787, had only limited information, and thus embarked upon an experiment. With Monty Python they might have said “And now for something completely different …“, but the US Constitution wasn’t just something different, but an experiment with a purpose, namely general welfare. Over time, amendments have been added, often with similar purposes on general welfare. With our experience of 230 years we may take stock, and compare purpose and performance.

In US Government classes, young Americans are indoctrinated to revere the US Constitution as something sacred. Given US history, there is much to say for this reverence but we should not forget that the Founding Fathers were quite critical themselves too. With an experience of 230 years of world history and an explosion in scientific knowledge, we can tally (not mentioning all problems that caused amendments):

• There already had been the first experiment of the Articles of Confederation of 1777. There was a willingness to learn from experience.
• The US Constitution originally allowed for slavery.
• The US Constitution did not prevent the Civil War.
• There were numerous financial crashes before a federal reserve system was devised, that still is quite dubious.
• The women’s right to vote was only introduced nationally in 1920.
• There was the Great Depression, and David Kennedy “Freedom from fear” shows that Huey Long might have set the road to fascism, had FDR not taken some wise steps.
• While the US was victorious in WW 1 & 2, we later saw government dishonesty with wars in Vietnam and Iraq and the Iran-Contra affair. Since the 1960s there is serious concern about the imperial presidency.
• In 2018 we see that more than a third of US voters have taxation without representation.

Obviously we can create such lists for other countries too. However, the question is how this US performance compared to the purposes of the Founding Fathers. There is a similar red line in “A Different Democracy” too, and the readers are encouraged to think about this themselves. However, ADD too much emphasises the successes (legally: “there still is a USA”) and doesn’t highlight above failures. ADD acknowledges that the Founding Fathers had limited information, but ADD does not extend on the purpose on general welfare, that would allow a comparison with above performance. ADD leaves the reader behind with the feeling “this is how it works, roughly” but not with the scientific information and advice “this is horribly bad engineering and needs repair as soon as possible”.

Science is supposed to inform, not to indoctrinate. US Government classes might have a degree of unavoidable indoctrination, to induce students to accept the rules of the game, so that they can function in society, and so that they can exercise their democratic rights because others accept those rights too. Yet in the USA there is an imbalance, and this has much to do with bias within political science apparently dominated by provincial USA. ADD has foreign influence via Lijphart but hasn’t escaped this bias.

American Homecoming

The US has lost track on the purposes on general welfare that the Founding Fathers had with the US Constitution. There can be an American Homecoming when the US rekindles those purposes, takes stock and makes repairs. (A google just now generates Sanford Levinson’s book that I did not read.) Let me proceed with my own finding.

There is a problem with the US electoral system with the presidential system with district representation (DR) for the House of Representatives. The remedy is to switch to a parliamentarian system, with equal proportional representation (EPR) for the House of Representatives. The best system of EPR seems to be the Dutch open list system, with the amendment of electoral alliances (apparentement) and the low threshold as explained in the LRL system (appendix L here).

The re-focus would remain within representative democracy and stay far removed from populism. Yet the re-focus would still be on “We, the people” and away from “We, the rulers” and “Me, the president“.

This doesn’t require a constitutional amendment, because the US president may adopt a ceremonial role, and appoint the prime minister and the cabinet that the House will elect. Presidential candidates can announce to take this ceremonial role and voters may prefer this.

There is also the analysis on an Economic Supreme Court, but I do not want to extend on that here. However, the common discussion on the US Constitution shows a similar discussion about the distinction between the popular vote (preferences) and informed judgment (science).

The major error in “A Different Democracy”

ADD uses the “principal – agent theory” (PAT) from economics. There is no reason for ADD to use it, since one might easily speak about representation and delegation without such reference. The Founding Fathers didn’t need what my fellow economists have been working on lately. However, we can thank the authors of ADD for using it, for it helps to highlight a glaring inconsistency between the use of PAT in chapters 1 and 2 and the use of PAT in the discussion of electoral systems in chapter 5.

• The first chapters suggest that voters are principals and can choose their agents / representatives
• but in chapter 5 it is clarified that the use of districts blocks many voters from doing so.
• ADD only succeeds in making itself believe that this is not inconsistent by changing the definition of agent / representative, but not telling so.
• Further see my summary discussion about this issue of definition of “agent / representative”.

US Primaries

ADD:147 must be thanked for their discussion about the role of primaries in the USA. This was important new information for me. However, in my analysis it increases the inequality / disproportionality in the USA. ADD table 5.6 presents a statistical inequality / disproportionality index number for the USA but this doesn’t properly account for the local variety in D or R candidates. Also, people cannot vote for their first preference and thus the data are highly contaminated. This discussion of the primaries caused me to include a novel statistical presentation with the difference between aggregate and disaggregate inequality / disproportionality, see here.

Like when the definition of “kilogram” still depended upon the national jurisdictions

Recently scientists convened to redefine the kilogram to a higher degree of precision. Suppose that the definition differed for each country depending upon their national juridiction ? The US “kilogram” might be 2 pounds and the French “kilogram” the one stored there, and adding such masses would generate chaos. Thus having international standards of measurement makes a lot of sense, whatever the laywers say (and then take other lawyers).

Instead, in political science it is still quite customary to say that the term “head of state” applies to the US president and the UK queen, even though their roles are entirely different. Apparently in international diplomacy, each country can designate a person who will “represent” the country “at the highest level”, and this might provide for some legal definition that works for international diplomacy. For our present purposes, this is not at issue, and we only record this flexibility in terms.

However, the situation is quite different for electoral systems, voting and “representatives”. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights has article 21:

(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

This creates the conundrum that countries might legally agree with this “human right” by using their national jurisdiction, while science finds that the empirical meanings are quite different.

• The US ratified it (Eleanor Roosevelt proposed it), apparently understanding that a (second preference) “district representative” would fit article 21.
• Holland ratified it, apparently understanding that an equal proportional proper (first preference) representative would fit article 21.
• Both countries allowed this for each other.
• Science finds that these interpretations are in conflict, and that voters in the USA, UK and France are disinformed about their human rights.

For example, a country with a dictatorship (Super Russia) might set up an electoral system such that (i) 99% of the voters can select 1% of the “representatives” and (ii) 1% of the voters (“government party members”) can select 99% of the “representatives”, so that this national jurisdiction would fit the UN UDHR article 21, and the role of the “representative” would mostly be to applaud the dictator. If this is legally correct, then law is not worth the paper that it has been written on, and society spends fortunes on lawyers who are deceiving no-goods. Lawyers might haggle on what “the will of the people” and “the basis” and a “genuine election” are, though, inviting us to pay up even more salaries in the hope that there might be light at some point. Likely one might also refer to “the spirit of the law”, such that judges might reject extreme abuses.

My suggestion is that people in the USA, UK and France start court trials that use UDHR 21 to enforce that their governments implement a change from DR to EPR.

Science provides support that UN UDHR article 21 is taken as expression of the material human right to have EPR (and not just a legal phrase), because EPR supports the expression of first preferences (“freely chosen”) (while people remain free to vote for a regional candidate if they wish so).

It might be better though to call out a national strike till this is arranged.

The point remains that “political science on electoral systems” still is locked in the humanities and thus is no science because:

• this branch can be observed not to have the scientific drive to develop precise definitions where they crucially matter
• this branch can be observed to stick with words that have dramatically different meanings depending upon national jurisdictions
• this branch can be observed to get confused and produce “statistics” based upon such words and not their empirical meanings
• “A Different Democracy” is an example in case, by distinguished professors, published by Yale, with praise by fellow “political scientists”
• but see the basic evidence in this paper, since ADD is an example only.

On the empirical observation that US voters like their system

ADD:142-143 and p152 state that the US has little criticism of its electoral system. When voters are disinformed and are indoctrinated by the academia that the US system is the best, then this kind of observation is Garbage In, Garbage Out. This indicates a grand failure of the academia, and ADD should say so. The field of Public Choice in economics can diagnose that professors in academia have particular incentives, and those incentives for “political science on electoral systems” apparently are still targeted at the humanities rather than science. Instead, academics should provide accurate information and inform the public that at least a third of voters have taxation without representation.

The term “should” in the above is instrumental and not moral “ought to”. If you want science then you should do so. It may be that political science doesn’t yet understand how econometrics can deal with Hume’s divide between Is and Ought, see page 6 here.

The Taiwan Journal of Democracy invited Lijphart to review his work on power sharing, and his final comment is on ADD:

“In addition to institutional variations, we look at a host of indicators of government performance, on which the United States generally does not score well. We forego explicit policy recommendations, but our implicit conclusion is that Americans should be more self-critical, more willing to consider political and constitutional reforms, and less eager to advocate American-style democracy for other countries.”

It is wise to avoid “recommendations” that fall from the blue sky indeed. The format “If you want this …. then you are advised to ….” is the proper format for science, and ADD suffers from not presenting this.

Structural failures in the US Experiment of Democracy

In 1787 the world thought in terms of Kings and Emperors and thus the US Constitution puts much weight on the role of the Head of State. A main worry was to prevent the development of dictatorship and relapse into monarchy (causing the English to pester “We told you so”). A modern view is that a Head of State has a ceremonial role, guards the rules of government, and may be some ombudsman for citizens.

The Founding Fathers however also attached great value to the separation of powers. In a parliamentarian system, the executive power resides within a cabinet of ministers, with the prime minister as a primus inter pares. The political agents are temporary visitors in their official roles. Remarkably, “A Different Democracy” informs us that the US constitutional assembly indeed tended to adopt a parliamentarian system, and that the role of President as the Chief Executive was chosen at some rather late stage. Some history can be found online here (look for “president”). Richard Beeman summarises:

“The other obvious solution—election by members of a national Congress whose perspective was likely to be continental rather than provincial—was ultimately rejected because of the problems it created with respect to the doctrine of separation of powers: the president, it was feared, would be overly beholden to, and therefore dependent upon, the Congress for his election.”

This is entirely a point of logic from the theory of the separation of powers, and not one of experience. Though Montesquieu coined the idea from reporting about practices in England, this hardly was a sound empirical base like we would require today. Given 230 years of experience on parliamentarian systems compared to the US Presidency and its evolution into an imperial presidency, the US can be advised to switch. However, it would be important to avoid the error of the UK of remaining with DR.

“A Different Democracy” also highlights that the Founding Fathers did not spend much time on the electoral system. Apparently they were locked in the convention of the day, which was DR rather than EPR.

On these two issues, the US Experiment on Democracy in 1787 has structural failures. Their resolution would cause an American Homecoming: A general feeling of relief that the American Revolution actually can work as intended.

“Political science on electoral systems” is locked in humanities thus no science

In 1903 the American Political Science Association (APSA) was founded, and this was an aspiration rather than an established science. The field of electoral systems has actually remain locked in the humanities that rely upon tradition.

Only around 1900 countries started switching to EPR, e.g. Sweden 1907, Holland 1917. In the USA, UK and France, scholars on electoral systems have been generating “reasons” why DR would be better than EPR. It is amazing what fallacies have been concocted. The evidence with the deconstruction is at MPRA 84482, and see there also for aspects on indices on inequality / disproportionality. As said, a summary using the USA midterm 2018 is here. Brexit is a result of the confusion in this branch of political science, and I noticed that there is also a misrepresentation that EPR in Weimar caused the rise of the nazis, see here. This discussion is about the stability of democracy indeed, and this Godwin should not surprise, but we can be surprised at this misrepresentation. (EPR likely would have helped FDR w.r.t. Huey Long too.)

Thus, while the US Constitution can be diagnosed as such an experiment from 1787, with repairs along the historical path, the scientific world is divided on the evidence and there is confusion by a branch of scholars who claim to do science but what they do is only comparable to astrology, alchemy and homeopathy. My suggestion for a solution approach is to set up a buddy system, so that pairs of scientists and scholars can exchange and check views and data. For Dutch readers this is my proposal to the Dutch Academy of Sciences KNAW.  This is a discussion for the UK with the Royal Society (science) and the British Academy (humanities).

On two shores of the Atlantic

Coming from a country with equal proportional representation (EPR) it may be very difficult to translate what is very obvious. Living in a country with district representation (DR) it may be very difficult to understand the issue. Perhaps that my interest in didactics of mathematics helps out. I can only hope that the authors will look at the evidence too, and join that buddy system. Arend Lijphart has spoken about electoral justice but perhaps this phrase has no strong definition and thus little impact. Hopefully taxation without representation rings a bell for the descendants of the Boston Tea Party. This diagnosis clarifies the situation and brings the message home that votes are discarded and that voters are robbed from their human right, article 21, to choose their representative (obviously of first preference and not some second preference “district representative” in legal fashion only).

Conclusions

ADD has the storyline that the US is a Different democracy, with the suggestion of Exceptional, with the suggestion of Excellent. For a 2nd edition I would propose to present the US as an Experimental democracy, with an early start in 1776, including the confederate phase, the slavery, the Civil War, the Depression, the imperial presidency with Vietnam and Iraq, and the prospect of an American Homecoming by changing to a parliamentarian system with equal proportional representation and an Economic Supreme Court. This though is actually also a storyline for a planned book of mine.

My suggestion for a 2nd edition of “A Different Democracy” would also be that the authors consider the use of the two graphs in this summary paper with their explanation. These graphs seem innocuous, and once you have seen them perhaps obvious, but they constitute a crucial new way to present the distortion in US proto-democracy. Part of my criticism on failing electoral statistics is that these two graphs are not shown and properly discussed. Similarly for the difference between the aggregate and disaggregate inequality / disproportionality indices.

Appendix. On STV and AV

(1) ADD:142 states that Single Transferable Vote (STV) would be true EPR. However, STV is not EPR. It is one of the tragedies that the UK Electoral Reform Society claims that STV would be such, while it isn’t. They thus hinder the change to EPR by advocating a system that voters find more difficult to use. (See here.)

(2) ADD:142 mentions the UK 2011 referendum on the “Alternative Vote” system, but it helps to explain that this was an awkward system falsely presented as EPR. The selection of this system for a referendum is an example of disinformation in the UK. (here)

Let UK and EU avoid a Stab-in-the-Back Myth

In August 2017 I discovered that “political science on electoral systems” still is locked in the humanities and thus no real science.

• This field of study has been disinforming the world for a greater part of last century, see here.
• The 2018 USA midterm election contests are an example that the system of district representation (DR) that the USA, UK and France use is only proto-democractic. More than a third of US voters have taxation without representation, see here.
• Readers might find this interview by Protesilaos Stavrou enlightening on the choice between parliamentarian democracy and populism with referenda.
• See information on (i) the 2016 UK Referendum Question here, republished at the LSE Brexit blog here, (ii) YouGov data on UK voter preferences on Brexit here, and (iii) the UK confusion on democracy and statistics here.

The UK has proto-democracy and no proper democracy

It is rather damning for a claimed democracy like the UK that its main two instruments of democracy – the general election contests of 2015 and 2017 and the referendum of 2016 – do not generate clarity on what the people really want. Currently there are calls for a new general election contest or a second referendum as if these already failed methods would finally produce the miracle that everyone is hoping for. Instead, the UK could switch to equal proportional representation (EPR). This system provides clarity by its very mechanics and has no need for referenda. EPR creates the mentality of seeking compromises in the House of Commons (or the EU itself), while voters themselves obviously cannot do such bargaining in the voting booth. The UK is no stranger to EPR because this is used for the European Parliament so that Nigel Farage got a seat there. UKIP with its 12.5% of the vote got only 1 seat in the 2015 House of Commons, which is about when and where the situation started to become chaotic.

Three options: May-EU deal, No Deal, or return to Status Quo Ex Ante

Now that there is a Brexit deal at the level of government, the EU has stopped bargaining with the UK. Accepting the May-EU deal is Option A, and rejecting it with a No Deal is Option B. Likely the EU may still allow the UK time for a fundamental reconsideration of its democratic processes, including such EPR reconsideration of the UK relation to the EU. The EU might perhaps allow a return to the Status Quo Ex Ante before the invoking of article 50, because of the fact that this was invoked under a failing system of proto-democracy only. This would be Option C. Formally it might seem that there are three options on the table then. A referendum might present voters with the six preference orders A > B > C, …., C > B > A, and each voter could indicate the preferred order. However, each option comes with complications. Options A or B might cause Scotland to depart from the UK, so actually these would split into four options. Option C might be painted in a stronger or weaker role for the UK, depending upon one wishes for more federalism or a Europe of the Nations. Referenda can never cover this complexity, which is where the strength of parliamentarian democracy comes from.

Michael Portillo warns for resentment with wrong reason: resentment itself

Carrie Fisher (Burbank 1956 – Los Angeles 2016), or Princess Leia in the Star Wars films, once stated:

“Resentment is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

On BBC This Week, November 16, Michael Portillo stated:

“I think the European Union has made a substantial (…) strategic error, short of marching Mrs May into a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest, they could not have produced a more humiliating surrender. And all of history (…) tells us that when you humiliate countries with a surrender, it doesn’t go well thereafter.” (here)

Portillo intends to remind us about Versailles after WW1, that created German resentment that led to WW2. Indeed, imagine a UK locked in economic stagnation with such resentment. Awkwardly, Portillo’s statement already is such expression of resentment itself. The UK has fallen into its own sword and fails to face up to its own responsibility for its current chaos. Blaiming the EU for not solving the Northern Ireland border issue is curious when the UK created this border.

Avoid a Stab-in-the-Back Myth

Let the UK make the proper diagnosis before applying treatment. Having a proto-democracy bottles up discontent that can explode in strange manners. The best way to avoid a Stab-in-the-Back Myth is to switch to EPR so that all voices in the UK are duly represented, finally for the first time. Parties can split along their Brexit views in order to offer voters the full spectrum. Then the House of Commons can finally start from proper proportions to bargain for a compromise. Basic options are the May-EU deal, No Deal, and if possible return to the Status Quo Ex Ante (retract the invoking of article 50) if the EU allows. These options however have colours and shades. Compromises would focus on internal UK affairs, like compensation for those suffering from the final decision. (The UK also has a referendum lock but in Holland such major decisions rather require new elections and then agreement by the new parliament, see here.)

Hopefully the UK chooses for a role in the EU

The Dutch government has stated that it would want to see the UK within the EU. Let the UK not feel itself be unwelcome or unappreciated. The UK might regard itself as an island apart from the Continent but then it might forget that shipping is the cheapest way of mass transport, and that the UK has been at the core of European development even in the Bronze Age, with its supply of tin. The UK was victorious w.r.t. Napoleon, WW1 and WW2, and should be able to be victorious against the ghosts of the past.

NB. The EU can use UK comedians too: compliments for James Acaster’s tea bag analogy, here.

PS. A bias has been created against EPR

The discussion in the UK about EPR can be biased.

(1) The BBC has the following GCSE test bit on how the German nazis took power in 1933:

“Proportional representation – instead of voting for an MP, like we do in Britain, Weimar Germans voted for a party. Each party was then allocated seats in the Reichstag exactly reflecting (proportional’ to) the number of people who had voted for it. This sounds fair, but in practice it was a disaster it resulted in dozens of tiny parties, with no party strong enough to get a majority, and, therefore, no government to get its laws passed in the Reichstag. This was a major weakness of the Republic.” (here)

This is a gross misrepresentation. The nazis were handed power by big corporations and finance, see Henry Turner’s “Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power”. David Kennedy’s “Freedom from fear” clarifies that Huey Long might have turned the USA into fascism too except that FDR made some wise moves. FDR might have had it easier with EPR. EPR was also introduced in Sweden in 1907 and Holland 1917 and those are amongst the happiest countries in the world. EPR is only an element in the full story but a key element. In Germany after WW2 they chose for EPR with a higher threshold rather than DR. Times are different now too. Do not forget the failure of economic policy w.r.t. the German Hyperinflation in the 1920s and the Great Depression in the 1930s: we now do a bit better with economic planning. (See here.)

(2) The UK in 1884 saw the foundation of the Proportional Representation Society, now the Electoral Reform Society (ERS). While Dutch democracy uses open party lists, that allow voters to express preference e.g. for a regional candidate (though few voters actually use this option), the UK reformers got off track in a desire for misconceived mathematical perfection. The ERS idea is that voters rank candidates, so that when a candidate is not elected then the ranking can be used. This “single transferable vote” (STV) system is also applied to districts, to win over minds indoctrinated on DR. The ERS claims that their system is EPR but it isn’t. The method is cumbersome while districts are distractive for preferences on national policy. The ERS misconceptions helped cause the disaster of the 2011 referendum on the “Alternative Vote” that is not EPR either. (here) The ERS is a major cause of confusion and the UK better seeks information about EPR from Holland and Sweden. This again comes with the warning that “political science on electoral systems” is no science yet, so that one must head advice from that field of study anyway. Thus my proposal of a buddy-system of scientists and “political scientists”.

(3) The combination of points (1) and (2) can be found in Doug Cowan’s discussion at the ERS in 2015 whether EPR  put the nazis into power. The very point that the nazis needed a coup (arresting communist members of parliament so that they could not attend a vote, creating an artificial majority) shows that EPR was blocking them. However, Cowan then offers STV as if it were EPR, and it isn’t.

(4) Timothy Garton Ash in 2017 called a “soft” Brexit most likely, like the May-EU deal has turned out to be. In July 2018 he warned for “A humiliating Brexit deal risks a descent into Weimar Britain“. This wasn’t a novel insight since negotiators have been aware from the beginning that there might be a backlash when phantasies met reality. In comments and twitter TGA was criticised that the article could be read as playing into the Stab-in-the-Back Myth. TGA replied that he precisely wanted to prevent this narrative. It is rather a “mission impossible” to try to prevent this narrative by presenting the most likely outcome as humiliating, while the true event is a facing up to reality. Nevertheless, TGA rightly criticised Tony Blair for not adopting EPR in 1997. In his discussion of the 2011 AV referendum he unfortunately did not criticise the ERS for their disinformation on STV. One wonders what he might think about the proposal of a buddy-system for science and the humanities, and whether he might set an example.

Resonance of the American Revolution (wikimedia commons)

More than a third of US voters have taxation without representation

The 2018 US midterm election contests for the US House of Representatives have the result that more than a third of US voters have taxation without representation.

The paper is here.

The summary chart below should speak for itself.

 

Draft of the Brexit speech by the Dutch King in the UK Royal Gallery on October 23 2018

The Dutch King Willem-Alexander will visit the UK and Queen Elizabeth II on October 23-24 2018. See the programme.

He will give a speech in the Royal Gallery in the UK Parliament, attended by various MPs, Lords and Ladies, on October 23.

On October 17, the Newsletter of the UK Royal Economic Society contains this comment by me on Brexit. See my earlier weblog entries on Brexit.

Alex read the comment in the Newsletter, and called me that he wanted to speak to me.

I spoke Alex yesterday over dinner of wildbraad in a fine restaurant in Leiden. He confessed to me that he seriously considers calling in sick and cancelling the state visit to the UK. He is experiencing increasingly negative feelings about the trip, and he had read my explanation that negative numbers reflect the process of cancelling.

Stroking his belly on the good meal, he was looking for consistency.

“Like for example,”  he said, “on the 24th we will have a visit to two ships, to mark the importance of seafare for our two nations. But Max and I will travel to the UK by air. So why don’t we travel by ship ? When people would expose me as being a total hypocrite then I can’t blame them.”

Brexit is wrenching him. He hates seeing the UK leaving the EU, or even the messy way how they are doing so. He doesn’t like the sight of a Queen of a proud independent nation making fun of him as a EU-shackled fake-king. Perhaps when he wakes up in Buckingham Palace he might find his shoelaces tied together. He feels much tempted to follow the example of William III (1650-1702) of sailing from Scheveningen to Britain with an armada of 250 ships and 35,000 troops and take the island, pound some sense into the natives, and have another Glorious Revolution.

“They call themselves Anglo-Saxons but to a high degree they are Vikings, just like the Russians. Vikings need an occasional bang to their heads to reset them to common sense again,” he explained. He also reminded me that he himself had a Romanov princess as an ancestor, see his claim on taking Russia too.

Thus I asked whether he was actually inviting me to bang his head now too, given his own Viking genes. He nodded. We were in Leiden because he had wanted to reread his MA thesis in history, that is kept there in the vaults of Leiden University. He handed me his thesis and I duly banged it to his head. To our regret it hardly had an impact. Alex’s head was too hard or the sheet of paper too thin.

“But I can’t conquer Britain because Max doesn’t want to live there. The Brits have something against Argentines. You know: the Falklands.”

He continued: “My comments on Brexit already have caused a stir. Prime Minister Mark Rutte now worries that my speech in the Royal Gallery will be boycotted by British parliamentarians. Oh my, oh my, a boycott is such an effective method to make someone look silly, especially when your shoelaces are tied together.”

“So this is why you wanted to talk to me,” I inferred. “You want me to smooth out some ruffled feathers so that you will still have an audience that will be interested in what you would have to say, and so that they know in advance that they will not be offended or lectured to.”

“Exactly,” he nodded. “Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his loony Foreign Secretary Stef Blok suggested that I talk to you, and ask you to draft a speech for me, and to put it on your website so that people in the UK have some advance information that it will be a highly relevant speech for the UK. So, please, make me look good.”

“If you pay for the meal,” I granted.

This got me a groan and pained look. He was in such a tight spot that he actually footed the bill. Thank you, Brexiteers.

Thus, below is my draft for the speech.

– – – D R A F T – – –

Dear friends, come together here in the Royal Gallery on the beautiful day of October 23 2018.

I am the Head of State of Holland. I am speaking for the Dutch government. The following does not contain my personal view, but it contains the view by the Dutch government, including me. This goes to show that one can still have a useful function even when there are some constraints. Also the UK can have a useful function even when there would be constraints by the EU.

[ rumble ]

You all know that I also went to school in Wales and that I developed a taste for Monty Python. Let me start with some jokes, so that you can all loosen up and relax before we become serious again.

[ sounds of horror ]

The first joke is about a boss who hires a new employee. At lunch on the first day, the employee complains at the boss: “There is something wrong with the wheelbarrow. It goes “screetch … screech … screech”.” [ spoken with long pauses ] The boss replies: “Well, you can go home now and don’t return. It should go “screetch screetch screetch”.” [ spoken fast ]

[ some grins and laughter ]

This joke makes me think about the speed of ships. For very long in human history, seafaring was the most efficient way of transport. Civilisation developed on the shores of rivers and seas. Many traces of this development have been lost because of the rise of the sea level since the last Ice Age. The British Isles were known in the Bronze Age for their tin to make bronze, and transport then was also by sea. The British Isles have a long history of settlers and invaders from the sea, like the Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, and William the Conqueror in 1066, to name a few. In 1688, William III of Orange boated from Holland with 250 carriers and 35,000 troops to cause the Glorious Revolution of William and Mary. It can be said that the British Isles are a center of European civilisation just like the shores of the Baltic, the North Sea, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The Dutch government is amazed that some people on the British Isles do not know about this history, and refer to “The Continent” as if Britain would be somewhat distant from Europe itself. Well, let me invite you to keep ships in mind and to see Britain embedded in Europe. Nowadays, planes can be faster, which is why I traveled here not by boat. Yet ships still cannot be beaten for bulk transport, and we should keep this in mind, also for our mutual borders, and also for the Political Economy for the Caribbean.

[ pause ]

The second joke is from the days of the USSR, actually only 30 years ago, still in our lifetimes. The joke may appeal to Jeremy Corbyn who is scheduled to meet with me today unless he would snake out to avoid me.

The joke concerns some factory for trucks and work appliances in the old USSR. At the end of the working day workers leaving the factory are checked on smuggling or stealing stuff. Each day there is also a worker, Vladimir, who pushes a wheelbarrow with scrap metal through the exit gate. Screetch, screetch, screetch. The guards are suspicious, check him and his load thoroughly, find only worthless stuff, and let him pass. One day the man turns 65, retires, and leaves the factory without his wheelbarrow. “Vladimir,” says the gatekeeper, “we will see each other for the last time today. Would you please tell me whether you have been smuggling something or not?”

[ pause ]

Vladimir confesses with a smile: “Every day for forty years, I have taken a wheelbarrow from the factory.”

[ some grins and laughter ]

The joke illustrates the importance of observation. For mathematics or philosophy you might make an abstract assumption and forget about reality, but science requires careful observation on reality.

This joke brings us to a key difference between Holland and the United Kingdom. We are both democratic nations, but have different concepts of democracy, which shows that the term “democracy” is a tricky term that we must use with care. The Dutch House of Commons is elected with equal proportional representation (EPR) and the UK House of Commons is elected with district representation (DR). Also the words “election” and “representation” are the same but mean entirely different things here.

The Dutch system provides for proper election and representation. The UK system of Single Member Districts with First Past The Post provides for contests rather than proper election. It discards votes and neglects the condition of representation of the interest of the electorate. A majority of voters in the UK have “taxation without representation”. The electoral system in the UK is in direct violation with article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was adopted by the United Nations in 1948.

The Dutch government has consulted with scientists in Holland and has come to the conclusion that there is something amiss with the academic field of so-called “political science on electoral systems”. Scholars in this field have neatly checked the content of the wheelbarrow but have failed to see the very wheelbarrow itself. They claim that the field would be a science but these scholars lack a training in empirical science. The field still is in the humanities in which indoctrination into tradition is more important than empirical observation and testing.

Though this field of study also fails in Holland, the effect of failure in Holland is limited, since we have equal proportional representation (EPR) and not district representation (PR).

For the UK, the effect is much larger. We can only understand Brexit by diagnosing that the UK voters have been disinformed for decades. The UK has a proto-democracy and no proper democracy yet. For this reason, I currently come to you carrying gifts, namely the news about this new discovery that “political science on electoral systems” is no real science, but it is pseudo-science, comparable to astrology, alchemy or homeopathy.

How this blind spot developed is an issue for history. At this moment it is important to bring this message to you. The Dutch government regards this news as a game changer for the present discussion in the UK on Brexit. Namely, the UK can now ask its empirical scientists, from physics to psychometrics, to help clarify the situation of systematic disinformation that has been created by this pseudo-science of “political science on electoral systems”.

The Dutch government suggests that the UK switches to equal proportional representation (EPR), say adopt the Dutch system of open lists (in which you may always vote for a regional candidate though people don’t tend to do so), has proper elections, and then let the new House of Commons discuss the relation with the European Union again. It is not unlikely that the EU would allow the UK the time for such a fundamental reconsideration on both its democracy and Brexit.

It remains to be seen whether the UK would want to switch from DR to EPR, but the first step would be to provide the public with proper information. If the UK would stick with DR and Brexit, then at least we will know that such a choice has been made by an informed electorate, while presently we can only diagnose that the UK electorate lacks this information. Obviously, logic requires that you first switch to EPR for the proper procedure to remain with DR.

[ mix of moans and laughter ]

Another topic.

Let me quote historian Helene Von Bismarck about the Single European Act of 1986:

“Thatcher’s dedication to the idea of a completed Single Market was such that she made considerable concessions during the negotiations to bring it about. (…) The Single European Act had enormous ramifications for the way the European Community was to be run. No only did it provide for the completion of the Single Market, it also simplified the decision-making in the European Council by extending the principle of qualified majority voting to a large number of issues that until then had been decided unanimously.”

When the people in the UK have the feeling that they are losing power to the European Union, then they should rather look at Margaret Thatcher, who accepted the abolition of veto power. She also rushed the agreement through Parliament instead of allowing for deliberation.

It is well-known that the Dutch people are also hesitant about the evolution of the European Union. Rather than seeing the UK leave the EU, Holland would like to have the UK as an ally, for example on raising the requirements on the qualified vote.

Another topic.

English has become the lingua franca of the world. Billions of people in distant lands learn English to partake in the development of our planet.

When people migrate to Europe, then many have learned English, and then many may have a preference to migrate to the UK since this is where English is spoken on a daily base. We have a mixed situation of course. Parts of Africa use French and those migrants may prefer to go to France. In Eastern Europe and Turkey, German tends to be important too. Nevertheless, we can understand that the UK might have additional migration because of the plain fact that English has become the lingua franca.

To my understanding there is no scientific research on this aspect yet, and it has not been a factor in current policy making yet. The Dutch government urges the UK to reconsider Brexit and to remain in the EU and to help develop sensible policies that also include such considerations.

Let us also be sensible about alternative developments. If the UK would leave the EU, as it now plans to do, then it would still be a magnet to those who have learned English as the lingua franca. Since ships can also reach the UK directly – and I have highlighted the ease of shipping to you – then the horrible scenes that we now see in the Mediterrranean are merely shifted to similar scenes around the British Isles, with a great cost for the UK to guard its coasts and to transport illegal immigrants back to their lands of origin. We only need to be aware of the forecasts about the rise in the world population and the issue of climate change.

It is the firm belief of the Dutch government that democracy requires deliberation, and that we all in the same boat here.

Other points.

[ … additional points by Mark Rutte and Stef Blok ….]

Thus, my friends in this Royal Gallery, let me round up this speech on behalf of the Dutch government. Our nations are closely linked by geography and history. Let us continue with increased awareness of this elementary fact. Thank you for your attention.

– – – E N D   D R A F T – – –

Acknowledgement: Jokes taken from here.  And this became the finally spoken speech and pictures.

Imagining the Dutch King’s speech in the Royal Gallery and the boycott by MPs. (Source: screenshot of a video by the UK Parliament)