John Stuart Mill in 1884 had this to say on the need for proportional representation.
Of course If he was around today he would be opposed to earplugs in legislative chambers as well!
Mills was a seminal political philosopher, British MP and political reformer of the 1800s. His treatise On Liberty is required reading for university students even today
From John Stuart Mill Upon Personal Representation
(published by the Proportional Representation Society, London, England, 1884, available on-line)
[My underlining added for emphasis]
“The pure idea of democracy, according to its definition, is the government of the whole people by the whole people, equally represented. Democracy as commonly conceived and practised is the government of the whole people by a mere majority of the people, exclusively represented.
The former is synonymous with the equality of all citizens; the latter, strangely confounded with it, is a government of privilege, in favour of the numerical majority, who alone possess practically any voice in the State. This is the inevitable consequence of the manner in which the votes are now taken, to the complete disfranchisement of minorities.
The contusion of ideas here is great, but it is so easily cleared up, that one would suppose the slightest indication would be sufficient to place the matter in its true light before any mind of average intelligence. It would be so, but for the power of habit; owing to which the simplest idea, if unfamiliar, has as great difficulty in making its way to the mind as a far more complicated one.
That the minority must yield to the majority, the smaller number to the greater, is a familiar idea; and accordingly men think there is no necessity for using their minds any further, and it does not occur to them that there is any medium between allowing the smaller number to be equally powerful with the greater, and blotting out the smaller number altogether. In a representative body actually deliberating, the minority must, of course, be overruled; and in an equal democracy (since the opinions of the constituents, when they insist on them, determine those of the representative body) the majority of the people, through their representatives, will outvote and prevail over the minority and their representatives.
But does it follow that the minority should have no representatives at all? Because the majority ought to prevail over the minority, must the majority have all the votes, the minority none? Is it necessary that the minority should not even be heard? Nothing but habit and old association can reconcile any reasonable being to the needless injustice. In a really equal democracy, every or any section would be represented, not disproportionately, but proportionately. A majority of the electors would always have a majority of the representatives; but a minority of the electors would always have a minority of the representatives. Man for man, they would be as fully represented as the majority.
Unless they are, there is not equal government, but a government of inequality and privilege: one part of the people rule over the rest."
He stated that fair and equal share of influence in the representation is withheld from the minority, contrary to all just government, "but above all, contrary to the principle of democracy, which professes equality as its very root and foundation."
Representation of all in proportion to their support should be the rule. As John D. Hunt, Alberta's prominent campaigner for pro-rep in the 1920s, wrote, the majority should have the decision-making power but the minority should have proper representation. (More on him in future blogs!)
[keywords: Alberta Legislature, earplugs, democracy, proportional representation, electoral reform]
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