7.1%! June 8, 2009
Posted by David in Politics.Tags: EU Election, The Pirate Party
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The Pirate Party was the big winner in the European parliamentary elections in Sweden. Its share of the vote increased from 0.6% in the Swedish parliamentary elections in 2006 to 7.1% yesterday. This means that there will be at least one – and possibly two – Pirates in the European Parliament. I hope that they will be effective in promoting freedom of speech, protections againt government snooping, IPR reform, and democratic reforms aiming at subsidiarity, transparency, and accountability.
The Pirate Party aims to join either the Liberal or the Green group in the European Parliament, since Liberal and Green politicians tend to be slightly more responsive to demands for greater civil liberties than either of the two largest groups in the European Parliament (the Christian Democrats and the Socialists). It will not be easy, but I think the party can make a difference by highlighting concerns that mainstream parties have ignored in their attempts to please various powerful interest groups such as military organizations, law enforcement agencies, media conglomerates, and pharmaceutical corporations.
But I also hope that the success of the Pirate Party is symptomatic of a new type of democratic party. Instead of choosing an unappetizing mixture of policies dealing with all sorts of issues, it enables the voter to vote for a party that focuses on that voter’s most important objective. I’m for example against agricultural subsidies, but I don’t think that subsidies are remotely as important as civil liberties. Why am I saying this? I’m saying this because I think some other parties may be good on issues I care about, but since they offer a package of all kinds of policies the individual voter can never be sure that they are going to pursue the issues that she cares about most. So I’m hoping for the rise of what one could call “lexicographic priority parties.” And I am optimistic. Almost a quarter of the Swedish electorate voted for parties with clear lexicographic priorities: the Green Party (the environment: 11%), the Pirate Party (civil liberties: 7%), the June List (political decentralization: 4%), and the Feminist Initiative (women’s rights: 2%).
The Pirate Party (Piratpartiet) May 22, 2009
Posted by David in Politics.Tags: EU Election, Pirate Party, Piratpartiet
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My vote has been mailed. I voted for the Pirate Party, which is a new party with possible representation in the EU parliament according to the latest Swedish surveys (about 5% seems possible). According to the EU Profiler, the Pirate Party has opinions that correspond to mine 75.8% of the time, followed by the June List (73.5%) and the Center Party (72.1%). The worst possible choice would be the Sweden Democrats (37.5%), which is a relief. I detest the Sweden Democrats, which is the Swedish counterpart to the French Front National, the British National Party or the Austrian Freedom Party.
What does the Pirate Party stand for? According to their website, it is a party that believes that the protection and extension of civil liberties trump all other issues (I agree). But it is mostly known for three specific policy proposals:
1 Reforming copyright laws in order to legalize non-commercial and derivative uses. The party also proposes a shortening of the duration of copyrights to a single term of five years.
2 Abolishing patents
3 Safeguarding privacy rights against wiretapping, interception of emails etc. (by third parties, including government agencies)
I’m in total agreement with all three proposals. In addition, the two largest parties (the Social Democrats and the Moderates) have instituted policies that are the opposite of what I would like. Actually, I think the arguments against intellectual property rights are even stronger than the arguments of the Pirate Party. Yes, I think IPR discourage and distort innovation. But I also think that there is a distributional argument, leading to an additional reduction of future innovation, which is related to the winners-take-all character of the distribution of monetary rewards for the creation of ideas with attached IPR (see my paper here: http://www.studiesinemergentorder.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69:the-double-edged-nature-of-the-hayekian-knowledge-problem-systemic-tendencies-in-markets-and-science&catid=40:social-sciences&Itemid=73.
The Pirate Party on Copyrights:
” The official aim of the copyright system has always been to find a balance in order to promote culture being created and spread. Today that balance has been completely lost, to a point where the copyright laws severely restrict the very thing they are supposed to promote. The Pirate Party wants to restore the balance in the copyright legislation.All non-commercial copying and use should be completely free. File sharing and p2p networking should be encouraged rather than criminalized. Culture and knowledge are good things that increase in value the more they are shared. The Internet could become the greatest public library ever created.”
On patents:
“Pharmaceutical patents kill people in third-world countries every day. They hamper possibly life-saving research by forcing scientists to lock up their findings pending patent application, instead of sharing them with the rest of the scientific community.”
On privacy:
“The arguments for each step on the road to the surveillance state may sound ever so convincing. But we Europeans know from experience where that road leads, and it is not somewhere we want to go. We must pull the emergency brake on the runaway train towards a society we do not want. Terrorists may attack the open society, but only governments can abolish it.”
I really like the last sentence in the above paragraph.
European Parliamentary Elections and the EU Profiler May 21, 2009
Posted by David in Politics.Tags: EU Election, EU Profiler
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I have always been an election junkie. One of my favorite activities is to sit up all night watching election specials on TV. I’m particularly fond of elections where the winner isn’t known until the early hours of the morning (I also enjoy “sudden death” extentions of tied hockey games).
I’m also a devotee of political tests. There is a very good one for the European elections in June at: http://euprofiler.eu/
The test is called “EU Profiler 2009.” It is the result of a joint project between the Free University of Amsterdam, the European University Institute and smartvote.ch. The great thing about this test is that you get a ranking of political parties across the EU (+ Croatia and Switzerland) according to how well their programs correspond with each possible set of answers to 30 questions, ranging from opinions about bank bailouts and labor market regulations to attitudes regarding immigration and euthanasia.
It’s slightly bewildering when you get a ranking of 300 European parties according to how well they match your policy preferences. And the questions are not given equal weight: the test taker has to indicate whether a question is very important, somewhat important, or relatively unimportant. In other words, if you indicate that, say, a joint European foreign policy is something with which you totally agree and that you find the issue to be very important, this will improve your match with those parties that both agree with your position and which give priority to that particular issue (this is just an example, I do not find that particular issue particularly important and do not have a strong opinion either way).
The satisfying thing for me is that my answers always tend to generate rankings that look downright eccentric. The reason is that I tend to be “left-wing” on socio-cultural issues and “right-wing” on fiscal policies. This means that certain “centrist” parties appeal to me, while other ”centrist” parties offer a rather unattractive mixture of cultural conservatism and fiscal profligacy.
Some highlights from my personalized party rankings with match percentages, excluding the Swedish parties that I can actually vote for (the subject of my next post):
1 Croatian Liberal Democrats 84.6 %
4 Alternative Liberale (France) 77.5%
10 Democraten 66 (Netherlands) 73.2%
15 Scottish National Party 70.5%
18 Green Party of England & Wales 69.7%
21 Green Party (Germany) 69.6%
36 Conservative Party (UK) 66.5%
53 French Communist Party (!) 64.7%
63 Free Democratic Party (Germany) 63.8%
113 Liberal Democrats (UK) 58.2%
120 Spanish Socialist Party 57.6%
171 Social Democrats (Germany) 51.3%
179 UK Independence Party 50.0%
212 Labour Party (UK) 44.6%
265 Front National 34.4%
272 British National Party 33.6%
275 Austrian Freedom Party 33.5%
282 Northern League (Italy) 32.2%
298 German People’s Union (DVU) 26.1%
300 True Finns 25.5%
I wonder if there are any other people out there who would rank English parties like this: Green-Conservative-LibDems-UKIP-Labour-BNP?
