Sunday, July 14, 2013

Idealogy-free party

 An idealogy-free party

 I can strongly argue that all mistakes and failures existing in our practices in leading and governing societies are due to follow ideologies which are in turn shaped as  products of  "Yes or No" thinking or in other words, "creative or destructive" thinking.   It means that our all progresses and achievements are more likely to be destroyed by ideologies.  Thus, we should be very careful from any ideologies constructed free from sciences and truths.  Have a look at  possible threats within ideologies summarized below by Produced by the Belize Development Trust.

Right parties should be ideology- free parties.  Only  such parties should lead societies in failure- free ways.

Luvsandorj. Ts

15 July 2013


PS: I have just acknowledged that the following text was downloaded through Google Search Engine.


POLITICAL IDEALOGIES AND THE PRINCIPLES  
 
 
Produced by the Belize Development Trust


The young don't listen! Most young have to re-learn old lessons the hard way. Our Prime Minister, Said Musa is like that. I am like that also! So are two of my daughters.

That said, it is the duty of older people to pass on their experiences to the young, to shortcut the learning process, whether they listen or not. Here is one very short analogy that cuts to the PRINCIPALS of different political idealogies and how they work in real practice, rather than the high faluting wind blown academic theories. This analogy is called the TWO COW ANALOGY of Political Idealogies.

THE TWO COW PRINCIPLES

COMMUNISM  Idealogy as a governing system: You have two cows. Give both cows to the government, and they MAY give you some of the milk.

FACISM  idealogy as a governing system: You have two cows. You give ALL the milk to the government, and the government sells it for a profit for themselves.

SOCIALISM  idealogy as a governing system: You have two cows. Give one cow to your neighbor!

NAZISM as a governing idealogy system: You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes both cows. Communism often does it this way sometimes.

ANARCHISM as a political idealogy system: You have two cows. You keep the two cows. Shoot the government agent and steal another cow from your neighbor.

CAPITALISM as a governing political idealogy: You have two cows. Sell one cow and buy a bull.




Our Belizean Prime Minister flirted with Communism in his youth. Whether from a basic lust for power, or a real idealogical bent is open to debate? Needless to say, he reached some sort of maturity and adopted the rapacious, exploitive, political party organization British governing political system, quite different from Communism.

Unfortunately, I do not have a set of analogies to compare with equivalent economic theories. But our Prime Minister just wasted three years of the PUP party collective capability and intelligence re-learning economic truths. "There is no free lunch!" and "You don't get something for nothing!" Using a foreign loan borrowing economic theory distorted and presented as Growth Economics. A bit like Osama bin Laden and his fundamentalists presenting murder and war with the rest of the world as a distorted version of true Islamic teaching.

There is no substitute for living within a government's income. There is no substitute for making budgets within that income. There is no substitute for limiting your government loans to a percentage of your annual cash flow income by law. There is no substitute for savings, as in Foreign Exchange Reserves. There is no substitute for creating Trust Funds to deal with Hurricane disasters, that are untouchable by any government otherwise by law. There is no substitute for underestimating your income cash flow and overestimating your expenses and operating costs. THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH !

If Belizean students can learn something at all from Prime Minister, Said Musa's life history it is this. Understand your political ideaologies and how they actually work and perform in practice. Understand that Conservative Economics is also Growth Economics, except it is too slow apparently for the youthful wishes of impatience and instant gratification of youth. Over time, re-investing in capital improvements, savings set aside for the unexpected, compounds national wealth and fights poverty. Basically it is the Boy Scout motto! "BE PREPARED!"


Maintained by http://belize1.com/art/enveloper.gifRay Auxillou, Silvia Pinzon, MLS, and Marty Casado. Please email with suggestions or additions for this Electronic Library of Belize.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Centre manifesto

I have just acknowledged that the below was downloaded in some sites through Google search:

Charlie Wheelan, author of Naked Economics and The Centrist Manifesto, says it's time for a third party to move the country beyond gridlock.


The Centrists’ main principles and goals:

1.     Government should do what individuals and businesses cannot do. For example, governments can make markets work better, provide valuable goods and services, and improve on market outcomes when private behavior causes social damage.

2.     Individuals should do what governments cannot (or should not) do. The logic of economics can also determine what we as individuals and private firms can do better on our own. This includes social issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and gun control.

3.     Align policy to create wealth and promote productivity. We can accomplish this by respecting the markets, promoting free trade, investing in human capital, building and maintaining twenty-first-century infrastructure, designing a more efficient tax system, and promoting a new form of labor relations.

4.     Respect the environment as a long-term asset. We live better today because of the environmental foresight of past policymakers like Theodore Roosevelt, and we have a moral obligation to pass a clean environment on to future generations. The most logical way to balance growth and environmental responsibility is to build the price of pollution into the activities that cause it.

5.      Build an efficient social safety net. Establishing a social safety net is the humane thing to do. This net can also ease the backlash against our capitalist system when it disrupts lives and communities in the process of doing new and better things.

6.      Restore fiscal sanity. Our government must balance the budget and stop borrowing from the future. We can do this by reforming entitlements like Social Security and fixing health care.

7.     Rebuild international institutions. The institutions developed after World War II, like the United Nations and international monetary system, need updating so they can effectively address twenty-first-century challenges including terrorism, arms trafficking, human trafficking, climate change, nuclear proliferation, international fisheries, border disputes, and human rights violations.

Reprinted courtesy of W. W. Norton & Company, publisher of The Centrist Manifesto.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Centre Parties: Polarization and Competition


 About the book

 

I have just reviewed this book titled as the Centre parties: polarization and competition in European Parliamentary Democracies [Paperback] written by Reven Hazav, which has been described as follows by the author:


Reuven Y. Hazan Are you an author? Learn about Author Whw "What kind of impact do centre parties have in parliamentary democracies? How does the existence and growth of centre parties affect party system polarization, electoral competition and government stability? This text reassesses the perception of centre parties as a force of moderation. The author argues that this intuitive judgement, which has become accepted by political scientists is dubious, if not incorrect. He examines contemporary centre parties in Europe and asserts that the opposing tendency of centre parties contributes to party system polarization"

It should be considered as a basic reading on centre parties and its political spectrum.

Luvsandorj

Centre Party (Finnish)


Аbstract

The peculiar conditions of the party system have enabled the Finnish Centre Party, unlike its betterknown counterparts in Sweden and Norway, to occupy a position at the centre of the political spectrum. Indeed, in holding the balance of power between left and right, the Centre Party has functioned as a ‘hinge group’, at once indispensable to the achievement of a majority coalition and decisive in determining its party composition. This article presents a profile of the Centre Party and argues that whilst Finland is clearly an extreme multiparty system in Sartori's terms, the Centre has been far from a negative and immobilistic agency. Rather, it has been a reformist party with a distinctive social blueprint.


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·         Tags: Centre Party , Environment , Immigration

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·         Three weeks ago Maud Olofsson announced that she will resign after ten years as the leader of the Centre Party (green liberal). But during the speech, she showed that she will be very difficult to replace. This since she, with her inimitable energy and passion, are not afraid to talk about values and ideological topics that might provoke many voters.

·         As a key figure behind the formation of the current centre-right coalition, her departure risk to open fractures in the coalition if her successor do not feel as strongly about the need to keep the Social Democrats down.

·         “It is no longer normal that the Social Democrats govern the country, it is no longer normal for the centre-right to quarrel. Today we have a better government,” she summoned her own effort.

·         But then she came to a number of challenges that the coalition, and Sweden, face in the near future.

·         "The renewal must continue," Olofsson said. She then sent an appreciative salute to the country's immigrants.

·         “Welfare dependency, unemployment, segregation and crime - we have many negative words for immigrants. Think how rarely you hear about all that is positive.”

·         “There are other ways to describe immigration. I find creativity, I find kindness, I find entrepreneurship, an indomitable will, and an indomitable enthusiasm.”

·         Then she talked about the immigrants in Sweden today.

·         “Do you know that Sweden has a net increase of 10,000 highly skilled immigrants every year? One of three pharmacists, and one of four doctors, are people with foreign backgrounds. Dear friends, it is immigrants who carry the core of our welfare on their shoulders.”

·         And then she talked about those who will come.

·         "I would like to say, 'We want you to contribute, we want you to start a business, we want you to help us build a society of pioneers in Sweden'. Let us help them and welcome them."

·         “The problem is not the immigrants, the problem is the immigration policy.”

·         Her entire speech was permeated by her absolute affair of the heart: entrepreneurship.

·         "I think we are in a transition period where we move from a Sweden of big business to a Sweden of entrepreneurs.”

·         She also emphasised the threat of climate change, and warned that the issue has almost fallen into oblivion.

·         “Emissions do not decrease, they increase. The situation is urgent.”

·         “Half of the world's population lives in cities, this places new demands on how to build sustainable cities. We need more efficient vehicles, energy efficiency, and climate friendly products.”

·         Olofsson finished her speech by once again becoming nostalgic.

·         “There have been some tough decisions, but I'm so glad to have been a part of influencing policy”.

·         “I am eternally grateful that I have been able to make this journey and I will carry it with me throughout life.”

·         It was an emotional Olofsson, who even shed a tear, that then received a standing ovation from party colleagues and political supporters. 

·         http://www.stockholmnews.com/images/byline/DavidJ.jpg

·         David Jonasson


·         The centre party just wins the finnish general elections

·         http://www.robert-schuman.eu/images/banque/largeur-200/fi-oee-1.jpg

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·         16/03/2003 - Results

·         6300 votes separated the Centre (KESK) from the Social Democrat Parties (SPD), hence the centre-right movement just pulled through in the general elections of 16th March and became the country's leading political movement. This was a snatched victory but a victory nevertheless, that will enable the president of the party, Anneli Jäätteenmäki, to become, in all probability, (the new Finnish Constitution grants the leader of the movement that won the greatest number of votes with the initiative of creating the future government) the first woman Prime Minister of a Scandinavian country. We should point out that Finland already has a woman President (Tarja Halonen, elected on 6th February 2000) and the outgoing Parliament was also led by a woman.

After eight years of opposition the Centre Party has come back to power winning 24.7% of the votes cast and 55 seats in the Eduskunta/Riksdag (the Finnish Parliament). But defeat was more than honourable for the Social Democrat Party that won 24.5% of the vote ie 1.6 points more than during the last general elections on 21st March 1999 and has won two additional seats. Paavo Lipponen can be proud of being the first head of government to have improved the performance of his political movement since 1983. The Conservative Assembly (KOK) is the first victim of the political bipolarity, winning just 18.5% of the vote ie a drop of 2.5 points in comparison with the general election of 1999, and losing six seats in Parliament. It might be the great loser in this election, since Finnish tradition decrees that two of the three major movements join forces at the expense of the third.

The two other partners in the outgoing government coalition have also suffered a drop in their electorate: the Left Alliance (VAS) won 9.9% of the vote and lost one seat, the Swedish People's Party (SFP) won 4.6% of the vote and lost three seats. The Greens (VIHR) however seem to have benefited from their decision to leave the government in May 2002 after the vote giving the go ahead for the construction of a new nuclear reactor, since they won 8% of the vote and won three seats. The Greens are the most feminised political movement in Finland; indeed their parliamentary group includes 11 woman for three men only. We should also note that the participation rate that has been dropping regularly over the last 20 years in Finland was higher than that recorded in the general elections of 21st March 1999: 69.6%, ie 4.4 points more. The participation rate was particularly high in the capital, Helsinki.

More than 2000 candidates from twenty political movements stood during the elections on 16th March of which four parties were standing for the first time. 25.5% of the Finns chose to vote early between 5th and 11th March ie slightly less than during the last general elections on 21st March 1999 (26.9%). We should note that these elections were supervised by foreign observers who came from developing countries on the invitation of the Foreign Affairs Minister.

Negotiations will start as early as Wednesday between the different groups with the aim of forming a government. "I am going to allow for all alternatives", declared Anneli Jäätteenmäki when the election results were announced, saying that she "had nothing against" an alliance with the Social Democrats. The outgoing coalition that assembles the Social Democrat Party, the Left Alliance, the Conservative Assembly and the Swedish People's Party have a majority in Parliament with 120 seats. However the continuation of this coalition is quite improbable, since the Centre Party's victory makes them an unavoidable movement in the future government. "The alliance between the social democrats and conservatives is out of the question since it does not reflect the people's will", stressed Anneli Jäätteenmäki.

As soon as the results were announced the possibility of a coalition between the Centre party and the Social Democrat Party was revealed. The two movements might easily come to an agreement and would not be at all obliged to find any other allies to govern, since together they have 108 of the 200 seats in the Eduskunta/Riksdag, ie an absolute majority. Although during the electoral campaign Paavo Lipponen repeated that he could not be counted on if his party lost, the outgoing Prime Minister might become slightly more co-operative over the next few days. Finally the president of the Centre Party might still call on the Conservative Assembly to form a centre right coalition if she fails to convince the Social Democrat leader, in the ilk of the government in Finland at the start of the 1990's.

In just a few months Anneli Jäätteenmäki has succeeded in winning over both her party and her country. In June 2002 she became the first woman to take the head of the Centre Party succeeding the former Prime Minister Esko Aho. Nine months later she is on the verge of becoming the first woman to lead the Finnish government. Anneli Jäätteenmäki who is 48 years old and a trained lawyer, became famous as Justice Minister, a post which she was appointed to in 1994 in the government led by Esko Aho (1994-1995).

Her unfortunate rival, Paavo Lipponen, probably failed due to his inability to lower the unemployment level that lies at 9.1% and comprises the main economic problem in Finland. "The first thing I shall do will be to create jobs, we spend 7 billion euros per year on unemployment and we shall be able and must use this money for something else. Otherwise we shall not be able to continue with our social protection." declared Anneli Jäätteenmäki before the general elections. In order to fight against unemployment the Centre Party promotes the "liberation of work", recommending the reduction in employers' contributions so that companies can take people on.

In Finland no-one is expecting radical changes in political life since the programmes of the various parties converge on several points. Only the form of the future government is still unknown even though all the political analysts are tending towards a coalition of the Centre and Social Democrat Parties. The first session of the new Finnish parliament will be held on 26th March.

·         General Election Results of 16th March 2003:

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Participation : 69.6%


 

The Centre Party in British Politics


The Centre Party in British Politics


The Centre


Ramiai Miegok

Ramiai Miegok, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Nov 24, 2010 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."





Before 1918 there had never been a centre party in British politics. The new Labour Party had grown up as a small ally of the Liberals, to their left. Between the wars, after a disastrous division of the Liberals, the Labour Party, by then independent, took its place as the main alternative to the Conservatives, and the decline of the Liberals as a centre party seemed complete after they split (for a second time) in 1931.

In the 1950s there were about six Liberal MPs, elected in remote regions of Great Britain , but in many areas the party ceased to have any effective existence. In the 1960s growing dislike of both major parties helped Liberals to win some by-elections, and these local successes inspired a vigorous revival. At the elections of 1974 Liberals received a fifth of the votes cast, though only a dozen MPs were elected. In 1977-78, when the Labour government lost its overall majority in the Commons, the Liberals gave support to the government, which consulted them in forming its policies. In the period of this 'Lib-Lab pact' support for the Liberals, as shown by opinion polls, declined to 5 per cent, but then rose again to between 10 and 15 per cent until 1981.

In 1981 a second centre party was created, the Social Democratic Party. It was inspired by Roy Jenkins, a former Labour moderate who earlier had held all the highest offices in Labour cabinets except that of Prime Minister. He had then left Parliament and served for four years as President of the European Commission. On his return to British politics he was joined by three other former Labour cabinet ministers and twenty other Labour MPs in forming the new party, which claimed that, free from the influence of the trade unions and of the left wing, it was the true successor of the Labour Party under its former leadership of Attlee and Gaitskell. The new party was soon joined by many people, including academics, who had not previously been active in party politics.

The Social Democrats and Liberals quickly formed an alliance of the centre, and at the end of 1981 had much more public support, according to opinion polls, than either the Conservative Government or the Labour Opposition. The two parties prepared an agreed statement of their policy, and each constituency had one Alliance candidate for Parliament, either a Liberal or a Social Democrat. But there were many disagreements, between the two parties and among the Liberals. The nature of the alliance was not clear. Its apparent success in receiving almost as many votes as Labour at the 1983 election was frustrated by the electoral system. All but three of the original Social Democratic MPs were defeated, mainly by Labour candidates. The Liberals then had more seats in Parliament and more members in the country, while the Social Democrats had the only political leaders with experience of office.

After the 1983 election Jenkins was replaced as leader of the Social Democrats by the younger David Owen, another former Labour Foreign Secretary, who quickly dominated his own party but appeared to be uneasy with the Liberals. In the next four years the Alliance had many successes in elections to local councils and in by-elections for Parliament, but failed to make a sustained advance. After the general election of 1987, in which the Alliance did a little less well than in 1983, most members of both parties agreed that they should merge to form a single party, and the merger was accomplished. But David Owen, with a nucleus of personal supporters, stayed outside. Soon there were two centre parties, engaged in bitter rivalry, though by 1990 Dr Owen's faction had collapsed and the united party, now called SLDP (Social and Liberal Democrats), or Liberal Democrats, stayed as the only serious party of the centre.

It had many successes in elections to local councils, and even gained a seat in Parliament from the Conservatives at a by-election; but in 1990 it failed to increase its support above 10 per cent in nationwide opinion polls. There was a new wave of gains in 1991.

Center Party


German political party formed to support Roman Catholic interests. It was active in the Second Reich from the 1870s, when it came into conflict with Otto von Bismarck in the Kulturkampf, to 1933, when it was dissolved by the Nazi-dominated government. It was the first party of imperial Germany to cut across class and state lines, but because it represented the Roman Catholics, who were concentrated in southern Germany, it never won a parliamentary majority.

For more information on Center Party, visit Britannica.com. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Copyright © 1994-2008 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.





Warning! The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Center Party 

(Keskustapuolue), one of the largest bourgeois parties in Finland. Founded in 1906, the party was called the Union of the Rural Population of Finland from 1906 to 1908 and the Agrarian Party from 1908 to 1965.

The Center Party is primarily a party of the rural population. Its members include both small and large owners of farm and forest lands. Its program and ideological orientation (1968) are characterized by defense of private property and free enterprise, government support for agriculturalists, attempts to follow a “middle road” between capitalism and socialism, and an idealization of the peasant culture. The program documents of the Center Party were drawn up by S. Alkio, K. Kallio, and U. Kekkonen.

The Center Party is highly influential in Finnish politics; its members have been the presidents of the Finnish Republic for six out of 13 terms. After World War II (1939–45) it began playing a substantial role in the favorable development of Finnish-Soviet relations. The party’s leaders (1975) are J. Virolainen (party chairman), A. Karjalainen, M. Miettunen, and M. Im-monen. Its press organ is Suomenmaa.



Center Party 

a bourgeois party in Germany from 1870 to 1933, founded by Catholic political figures on the eve of the unification of the country under Prussian hegemony.

In the early years of its existence, the Center Party expressed the particularist sentiments that were widespread in southern Germany. In the 1870’s the government, which wanted to put an end to the separatist movement, subjected the Catholic Church and its political arm, the Center Party, to severe persecution (seeKULTURKAMPF). In the late 1870’s, however, a rapprochement took place between the ruling circles and the Center Party, largely because the big landowners, who played the leading role in the party, had a vested interest in the protectionist import duties introduced by the government.

The rapid industrialization of the country strengthened the position of the big industrialists in the leadership of the Center Party. Thus, the party came to support the political course of German imperialism at the turn of the 20th century. After the November Revolution of 1918, the party’s leadership consisted solely of members of the industrial bourgeoisie. At the same time, the Center Party retained its mass base and adapted to new conditions; its left wing found support among, for example, the Christian and Catholic labor unions.

From 1919 to 1932 members of the Center Party served in the German government. Centrist chancellors included K. Fehrenbach (1920–21), J. Wirth (1921–22), W. Marx (1923–24, 1926–28), and H. Brüning (1930–32). During this period the Center Party reflected the attitudes of the wing of monopoly capital that wanted to retain the bourgeois parliamentary system. Along with the whole ruling camp, however, the Center Party evolved toward open reaction.

When the fascists attacked the republic in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, the Center Party’s leaders—including Brüning, F. von Papen, and the party’s chairman L. Kaas—supported the abolition of bourgeois democracy and thereby contributed to fascism’s rise to power. In March 1933, the votes of Center Party members of the Reichstag enabled Hitler to obtain emergency powers. The final result of this course of action was the self-dissolution of the party on July 5, 1933.

REFERENCES


Thälmann, E. “Tsentr—vedushchaia partiia germanskoi burzhuazii.” In the collection Krizis kapitalizma i tserkov’. Moscow, 1932.
Morsey, R. Die Deutsche Zentrumspartei. Düsseldorf, 1966.
Junker, D. Die Deutsche Zentrumspartei und Hitler 1932–1933. Stuttgart, 1969.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.