Why we should abandon political parties

Should we abandon political parties? The answer is yes. An unlikely combination of a French philosopher, Simone Weil, Hitler in WWII, the current United States imbroglio, and the Australian independents in the last election - the Teals - give us the reasons.

Simone Weil was the philosopher, born in Paris on February 3, 1909, the second of two children to comfortably off agnostic and secular Jewish parents. Her father was a medical doctor, and her brother, the 3-year older Andre, would become one of the most renowned mathematicians of the 20th century.

A first-rate scholar of philosophical thought, Simone Weil topped the entrance exam for the prestigious École Normale Supérieure. She also finished first in the exam for the certificate of "General Philosophy and Logic"; Simone de Beauvoir finished second.

Weil was proficient in Ancient Greek by age 12. She later learned Sanskrit so that she could read the Bhagavad Gita in the original. Albert Camus, who collected and published much of Weil's work after her death, and once called her "the only great spirit of our time". Since 1955 more than 2,500 scholarly works have been published about her, including close analyses and readings of her publications.

Weil participated in the French general strike of 1933, called to protest against unemployment and wage cuts. The following year, she took a 12-month leave of absence from her teaching position to work incognito as a labourer in two factories, one owned by Renault, believing that this experience would allow her to connect with the working class. In 1935, she resumed teaching and donated most of her income to political causes and charitable endeavours.

In 1936, despite her professed pacifism, she travelled to the Spanish Civil War to join the Republican faction. During her stay in the Aragon front, Weil sent some chronicles to the French publication Le Libertaire, and on returning to Paris, she continued to write essays on labour, on management, war, and peace.

While in Assisi during the spring of 1937, Weil experienced a religious ecstasy in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli-the same church in which Saint Francis of Assisi had prayed. She was led to prayer for the first time in her life. During World War II, she lived for a time in Marseille, receiving spiritual direction from Joseph-Marie Perrin, a Dominican Friar. Around this time, she met the French Catholic author Gustave Thibon, who later edited some of her work.

Weil did not limit her curiosity to Christianity. She was interested in other religious traditions-especially the Greek and Egyptian mysteries; Hinduism (especially the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita); and Mahayana Buddhism. She believed that all these and other traditions contained elements of genuine information. In 1942, Weil travelled to the United States with her family. She had been reluctant to leave France, but agreed to do so as she wanted to see her parents to safety and knew they would not leave without her.

Weil wrote The Iliad, or the Poem of Force, L'Iliade ou le poème de la force, a 24-page essay, in 1939. First published in 1940 in Les Cahiers du Sud, the only significant literary magazine available in the French free zone. As of 2007, it was still commonly used in university courses on the Classics.

Simone Weil wrote Note sur la suppression générale des partis politiques "On the abolition of all political parties" in 1943, at the very end of Weil's tragically short life.

Weil based much of her thinking on Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) and the General Will. Thomas Paine had described the 1700s as "The Age of Reason" and "The Enlightenment,". Rousseau in his book, The Social Contract (1762) in common with Hobbes and Locke, Rousseau required the assent of all to the social contract. The General Will, in political theory, is a collectively held will that aims at the common good or common interest.

"Man is born free; and everywhere is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they." Rousseau argues that freedom and authority are not contradictory since legitimate laws are founded on the general will of the citizens. In obeying the law, the individual citizen is thus only obeying himself as a member of the political community. The phrase "general will", as Rousseau used it, occurs in Article Six of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen), composed in 1789 during the French Revolution.

The basic principle of the Declaration was that all "men are born and remain free and equal in rights" (Article 1), which were specified as the rights of liberty, private property, the inviolability of the person, and resistance to oppression (Article 2). All citizens were equal before the law and were to have the right to participate in legislation directly or indirectly (Article 6); no one was to be arrested without a judicial order (Article 7). Freedom of religion (Article 10) and freedom of speech (Article 11) were safeguarded within the bounds of public "order" and "law."

in 1754, Rousseau wrote his Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men. In it, he attempted a thought experiment which imagined what humans may have been like in a "pre-civilisational" state. He stated that his conclusions, in which we have an evolving and changing relation between leaders and their followers were uncertain.

In short, we are all bound by a common agreement, unwritten, to care for the common good or common interest.

Weil wrote in On the Abolition of All Political Parties "The true spirit of 1789 consists in thinking, not that a thing is just because such is the people's will, but that, in certain conditions, the will of the people is more likely than any other will to conform to justice."

"In the eyes of Rousseau (and he was right), the unjust will of an entire nation is by no means superior to the unjust will of a single individual" by which she (and Rousseau) meant that an single individual seeking justice is more morally acceptable than an unjust government governing entire country.

She also wrote:

To assess political parties according to the criteria of truth, justice and the public interest, let us first identify their essential characteristics. There are three of these:

1. A political party is a machine to generate collective passions.

2. A political party is an organisation designed to exert collective pressure upon the minds of all its individual members.

3. The first objective and also the ultimate goal of any political party is its own growth,

Further arguments she puts against political parties is" the essential tendency of all political parties is towards totalitarianism, first on the national scale and then on the global scale." We can see this in Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Legitimately elected, Hitler used his party to build German militarism to invade Poland and initiate World War II.

Is Simone Weil correct?

The Hitler example above is one piece of evidence. But even before Hitler, the democratic Weimar Republic was formed in1919. It immediately faced serious challenges. Among them were crippling economic depression, domestic turmoil (culminating in open rebellion), and a divisive and unwieldy political system which many Germans hoped would fail. Liberal parties (including the Socialist and Communist parties) often failed to find common ground with each other or with more moderate parties. The extreme right criticized the government (and each other) at every turn, even with conservatives in control.

Constant political chaos made it difficult to govern. The Weimar Republic lasted from the summer of 1919, when the Constitution was passed, to the Nazi seizure of power on January 30, 1933. If the political parties of Germany had worked together it is unlikely Hitler would have come to power.

We can also use more modern examples from the major English-speaking countries to substantiate her views, particularly the United States and Australia.

In the US, the Democratic and Republic Parties seem almost at war with one another. Foreign Policy, a neutral blog, states "it's easy to feel as if U.S. democracy is crumbling before our eyes."

It quotes the conflict on abortion rights and the stacking of the supreme court. Other conflicts are Donald Trump and his court cases Donald Trump promised to drain the Washington swamp. Instead, Bloomberg reported he has surrounded himself with family members, appointees and advisers who've been accused of conflicts of interest, misuse of public funds, failure to disclose information and violating ethics rules. Some associates are under investigation others have resigned and five have either been convicted or pleaded guilty, including three for lying to government officials. Scandals plague all administrations, but Trump's at the time of Bloomberg reporting was only two years old. The allegations kept on coming.

The Australian example of the independents, the Teals. The 2022 election was a historic move of voters away from the two major parties in the Australian election, towards independents. The incumbent Liberal/National Coalition government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison was defeated. In Melbourne, Monique Ryan, a doctor, won the blue-blood conservative seat of Kooyong from the now former treasurer, Josh Frydenberg. Teal had become the preferred colour for many of the independent campaigns, starting with Zali Steggall, who defeated a former prime minister Tony Abbott in the seat of Warringah, on Sydney's northern beaches at the 2019 election. Notably the Teals were all women.

Most of the Teal independents, although not Steggall, received some campaign funding at this election from a group called Climate 200. It was established by the Melbourne philanthropist Simon Holmes à Court in 2019 and provided funding to independent candidates who made climate action their primary objective.

The arguments above make an overwhelming case for the abolition of political parties. But we still need to have a Prime Minister and responsible ministers. How do we get them? I will leave that decision to all future comments, but this writer's choice is to elect the Prime Minister through a national vote, and to endorse aspiring ministers through that election. The final choice of ministers would be at the Prime Minister's discretion. Her choice would be the best way to build a cooperative team. The peoples' choice would ensure that the majority wish prevails.