issuevoter wrote on Aug 4
th, 2018 at 12:46pm:
This discussion is getting ridiculous. Its nothing more than a "Deep State" conspiracy theory. Here we have claims that Australia is governed by an oligarchy, and we are offered such groups as the Liberal Party and Labor Party as "proof" of the claims. I think a lot of people would need an explanation of how these Parties form an oligarchy. Compulsory voting is an Australian historical idiosyncrasy. The major parties do not force it on us. The Law does.
Hold on, I never said anything about a deep state, which is a completely different theory.
The Iron Law of Oligarchy states that 'oligarchy' is inevitable when large organisations are formed. When I talk about oligarchy, I'm not talking about it in the sense of a Russian oligarchy, I'm talking about it in the actual definition of the word 'rule by the few'. It is a fact that the decisions of the Commonwealth government are made by the Cabinet, which consists of 20 - 30 or so individuals, not to mention other elite interests. Those 100s of people are the oligarchy because they are 'few' in number. Just because they are elected, doesn't mean that they are not an oligarchy.
The Iron Law of Oligarchy also asserts that certain behaviours that we experience from the political class, such as: self-interest; high pay packets; loyalty to party; concealment of truths; etc. are all behaviours that are instinctive to an oligarchical form of government. The Green's recent failure to adequately deal with sexual harassment claims is a telling example of how the oligarchy 'within' the Greens party behaves - by protecting the interests of the ruling elite within the party at the expense of the rank and file members.
What really annoys me, issue, is when people on this Forum or elsewhere complain that politicians are nothing but leeches and should show more restraint in self-interest when in actual fact we tacitly support oligarchy by supporting the current system of representative democracy. Now, it may be the case that what we have now is the 'worst among all governments, except for all the others' but then we as the people should accept without complaint the deficiencies of the system.