But - as I argue above and as I have argued in previous discussions about the appropriateness of parliaments making decisions on behalf of the people, there is the problem that:

1. Having a single parliamentary body making decisions on a wide range of issues means that there is a very low probability that any given citizens will be adequately represented by any party on offer (obviously, this involves a tradeoff between efficiency and directness of representation, but I find the currently prevailing attitudes skewed too far away from direct representation).

2. The electors for any given parliamentary body may or may not be identical to the stakeholders in any given issue that the parliamentary body rules on.

Essentially, I guess that what I'm saying is that parliamentarianism has a number of built-in weaknesses that need to be addressed. Certainly, some parts are salvagable, some parts are downright good and some parts are simply indispensable. But some parts don't work, and I think it behooves us to acknowledge that.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.