Someone wrote, expressing what amounted to a conspiracy theory about a two-party system. I don’t think there’s any need for that, but the real reasons for a two-party system may be even more worrisome, because there isn’t anything obvious that can be done about it – no evil ‘Establishment’ pulling the strings from behind the scenes:

>  The current two-party US political

> system is perfect for instituting only predetermined false bipolar

> alternatives. This is why the Establishment will fight vigorously to prevent

> popular acceptance of a system which recognizes more than two parties.

> This is also why the Establishment will restrict the existing two parties to

> offering only two different flavors of statism ….

> both agree on denying the common rights of individual

> liberty in favor of carving up that freedom for special interest

> entitlements.

There’s a simpler, non-conspiratorial, explanation for a two-party system. Roughly, when parties are voted into power, there’s a winning and a losing party. If there are several parties, there’s still one winner and several losers. The losing party or the one among the losing parties that looks like it can get the most support becomes a node of attraction for all the people who don’t like the policy package of the winning party. Maybe enough will be attracted to shift the balance the next time around. If so, that becomes the winning party, and the game starts over. If not, the losing party is still likely to remain the best bet for those disaffected with the winning party. A two-party system is a predictable, if not quite inevitable, outcome of the kind of voting system we have. It tracks the obvious distinction between winners and losers – though of course the two can switch places. (The effect is especially powerful when you have a ‘winner-take-all’ electoral system, as in the U.S. But even under a proportional representation system, as in many European countries, there tend to be two major parties plus a handful of minor parties. The main difference is that a minor party has a better chance of becoming a major party.)

By the way, there’s also a simple explanation why the two parties tend to come to resemble one another on substantive issues and differ only in window-dressing. Let’s begin with Harold Hotelling’s hot-dog stand example (which is actually how it was introduced in the economic literature). Imagine a one-mile stretch of beach with two hot-dog stands that do not differ in price or product-quality. A little thought will show that, from the stand-point of potential customers, the optimal placement for the stands is at the ¼-mile and ¾-mile marks. That way, no one on the beach has to go more than a quarter of a mile to get to a hot-dog stand, and if the stands are placed anywhere else, some will have to go more than a quarter of a mile. Suppose now that the stands are actually at the ¼- and ¾-mile marks. If the hot-dog stands can be moved easily, they will tend to move toward the middle. The owner of the stand that is further north doesn’t lose (many) customers to his north by moving south, because those customers can’t get to any closer hot-dog stand. He only picks up customers in the middle that he moves closer to. The same goes for the one who is, to start with, further south: she doesn’t lose (many) customers to her south by moving north, but only picks up customers in the middle that she is moving closer to. The ultimate result is that the two stands end up in the middle of the beach, back-to-back, at the ½-mile mark.

Now apply this to politics. Suppose you start with two parties that differ greatly on substance – let’s say a Socialist Party and a Capitalist Party. Each can count on a certain number of ‘safe’ voters. No matter how bad (corrupt, compromised, etc.) the Capitalist Party gets, Ayn Rand is never going to vote for the socialists. Similarly, no matter how wishy-washy or unprincipled the Socialist Party gets, Michael Harrington is never going to vote for the capitalists. The competition to win votes turns on the voters in the middle. The parties’ positions move toward each other because they’re each trying to enlist support from the same group of voters. If that goes on long enough, the parties’ positions may become indistinguishable. Then – possibly – there will be room on the political landscape for a new party, significantly different from both. However, that probably won’t change the two-party dynamics. The original two will end up merging or only one will survive.

Rob
_____
Rob Bass
rhbass@gmail.com
http://oocities.com/amosapient