Referenda

I would recommend reading my piece from last month called "Really voting FOR something" before continuing with this.

If someone decided to put to the electorate an issue in a referendum where everyone was to receive a handout of say 20,000 Euro, would anyone vote against it? Even if some wise heads could see this for the bribe that it was and it could bankrupt the exchequer in no time?

Then if the government faced with a massive debt crisis which could close it down put in place a referendum where everyone would have to pay 12% of their income, immediately, to avoid the state's liquidation, how many people would vote for it, even though it was probably for the general good?

The whole problem with referenda is that they try to take complex issues and reduce them to a simple answer - yes or no. What then if "no" is the choice, despite the situation demanding some urgent action?

Wording the referendum is important, and then all sorts of political factors come into play. Is a government whose standing is at 25% going to win a referendum?

I recall being in Copenhagen, Denmark, on a business trip a few days after the Danish referendum on whether to join the Euro or not. I spent my time going out to the client site discussing the vote with the taxi driver who took me there - a Pakistani immigrant, who had no axe to grind. He informed me that 80 to 90% of the discussions before the vote had actually been about domestic politics and next to nothing to do with the Euro as a currency.

This I can believe. And yet, the Danes you would have imagined (according to stereotypes - always an unfortunate guide to the actual facts) are generally an educated, sophisticated people.

And there is also the undoubted truth - it is far easier to be opposed to something than to be for it. I can again for this example take you to the Occupy Wall Street / London / Germany usw movement(s) - to which I am generally sympathetic. That the banks have fouled up is self-evident (unless you are a member of the US Republican Party, but I digress). How you would put things right and avoid all the consequences of that foul-up - poverty, unemployment, underemployment usw - is another matter entirely.

It is, in other words, not just a simple "yes" or "no" situation. The "I do not like this, so get rid of it" approach simply does not work in the real world. A pragmatic solution has to follow. Bailing out the banks may seem to have been a bad idea, would letting them fail have been a good one?

Would we have no poverty and no unemployment if we had let them fail?

A referendum is far too simple a road to follow. The chances are that large numbers of people voting would not understand the issues and the consequences of their actions anyway. And there is also one of the sad truths of this world - minorities are often right!

In 1492 Columbus did not agree with the majority opinion that the world was flat. While we may jokingly remark that it might have been better if he had driven his fleet off the edge of the world, the fact remains that any referendum held at the time might have stopped him going. Which is an interesting point to bear in mind.