PER 2015
References and further reading: The Economist. 2005 (Print Edition) “Anatomy of Thrift” - http://www.economist.com/node/4418414 The Economist. 2015 (Free Exchange) “The Global Secular Savings Stagnation Glut.”
-http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/puzzles BloombergView. 2015. “Why German Growth Beat Expectations”
-http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-13/why-german-growth-beat-expectations Choukhmane, Coeurdacier and Jin. 2014. “The One-Child Policy and Household Savings”: pp 4-5 - http://personal.lse.ac.uk/jink/onechildpolicy_ccj.pdf Threadgould, A. 2013. “Are Austerity Measures Self-Defeating?” Economics Today volume 21.
Should we harness the possibility of direct democracy?
Howard Hung
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.’’ This famous quote by Winston Churchill raised doubts about the contribution of democracy during a crisis, especially during cold war when the juxtaposition of the tight confines of the decision making process between the superpowers, USA and USSR and the unfathomably disastrous consequence became apparant. Indeed, one of the biggest criticisms of democracy is that the hardships of the minority could not be justified by the welfare of the majority. However, the injustice in certain cases could be justified if it prevents a greater injustice, namely, if the hardships of the minority are to prevent the hardships of a greater magnitude. In fact, the relationship between human nature and the society as a cooperative venture for mutual advantages have to be realized before we could provide an adequate answer for whether or not should we inaugurate direct democracy. Augustine, the famous medieval philosopher, has once said, ‘’justice is the rightful dominance or dominion of the superior over the inferior.’’ Preceding this, two questions immediately arise: Firstly, to what extent is a dominance, or power, rightful? Also, who should be dominant over others, and why? The foundation for direct democracy is that the government has to comply with the will of the public within a system of legislative, judicial and executive branches that are controlled by people. Direct democracy could also mean the distribution of state power through assemblage of the people with mainly three kinds of power that people hold: citizens’ initiative enacts new legislation, recall forces the officials to step down before the end of their term, and referendum abolishes an existing law. Before we go onto the evaluation of abolishing the House of Commons, we should appreciate the indispensability of the principle of checks and balances to a society. All through history, political systems have needed an essential automatic stabiliser built into them to ensure that power is not abused --- checks and balances, and democracy is no exception to that golden rule. So why exactly is the separation of power so important? Under a complex political hierarchy, the principle of checks and balances is adopted to balance each of the branches. More importantly, it holds other bodies back from the abuse of power: the legislative body passes law, the executive body executes these laws, and the judiciary body could exercise judicial review to review the constitutionality of these laws. Under such system, any flawed motion that advocates excessive individualism would be rejected, and specialisation of different departments would lead to a more efficient decision making
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