Progressives in the UK and US often seem to think that if we only had proportional representation all our political woes would be solved. But if the Netherlands is anything to go by, think again. After seven months of political wrangling and two failed votes of no confidence in ‘caretaker’ prime minister Mark Rutte, it’s looking like the next Dutch cabinet will be made up of exactly the same parties as the last one. This is despite the fact that 71% of Dutch voters oppose carrying on as before.
The previous cabinet fell because of a scandal in which the tax office falsely accused tens of thousands of parents of child benefit fraud. The witch hunt left the victims – who were routinely ethnically profiled – with their lives in tatters. It was revealed last week that social services removed 1,115 children of victims from their homes between 2015 and 2020. In other news, the Pandora Papers revealed that leader of the Christian Democrats, Wopke Hoekstra, had invested tens of thousands of euros in a letterbox company (a type of company commonly used for tax avoidance) in the British Virgin Islands. Hoekstra continues as finance minister.
A recent study comparing public attitudes to Dutch government policy found that rich people who don't vote are better represented than middle and low earners who do vote. If middle and low earners’ preferences are represented in policy decisions at all, it is by coincidence, because their views happen to coincide with the views of the rich. The word for that is plutocracy.
