The System is Not Broken, It Just Doesn't Work for the People of the United States

Earlier this month, in a commentary for the Huffington Post, Charles Ferguson, the director of Inside Job a new documentary on Wall Street and the ongoing financial Crisis, argues that the two-party state and duopoly system of government is at the root of the myriad problems facing the people of the United States.  Some excerpts:

far from being in an era of brutal partisan warfare, as conventional wisdom holds and as watching the nightly television news might suggest, the United States is now in the grip of a political duopoly in which both parties are thoroughly complicit. They play a game: they agree to fight viciously over certain things to retain the allegiance of their respective bases, while agreeing not to fight about anything that seriously endangers the privileges of America's new financial elites. Whether this duopoly will endure, and what to do about it, are perhaps the most important questions facing Americans. The current arrangement all but guarantees the continuing decline of the United States as a nation, and of the welfare of the bottom 90% of its citizens. . . .

the political duopoly has overseen a massive disinvestment in the future of the United States and the American people, and a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% of the population to the top 1%. Taxes on dividends, high incomes, capital gains, and estates have sharply declined, while tuition at public universities, hours worked per family, household debt, and government deficits have all increased . . .

the American people have begun to sense that the system is rigged, and the recent election results are partially a consequence of this. Fewer people are voting, more people are registering as independents, and voters are more willing to switch parties. Of course, as long as the duopoly holds, there is very little that they can do. The big question is: can it hold?  

The answer to this question is actually quite simple.  So long as the American people allow themselves to be held hostage by the Democratic and Republican parties, by the politics of the two-party state, and the ideology that sustains it, the duopoly will hold.  Ironically, however, the indisputable sense that "the system is broken" it itself exploited by the ruling corporatist parties to maintain their hold on power.  Democrats and Republicans agree that the system is broken, indeed, this claim is often the basis of their electoral campaigns.  At Blue Carp, the State Chairman for the Libertarian Party of Colorado, David Williams, writes:

The system, however, is not broken. It is a mistake to think otherwise. The system is doing exactly what the statists want it to do: grow. It grows no matter which wing of the two party duopoly is in charge of Congress. It grows no matter which wing of the two party duopoly sits in the White House. It grows no matter which wing of the two party duopoly controls the federal courts. It always grows. . . .

The first step to recovery is to admit the problem.  Once we recognize our problem, I suggest we trash our voting method where candidates with less than 50% of the vote can win. Seriously, what kind of system declares someone victorious when most of those that voted wanted him to lose?  This is not question posed by the Mad Hatter at tea. It is our reality.  Plurality voting is nonsense. Approval voting is one, far better, alternative. There are others, as well.