These notes were the basis of a presentation given by Lee Naish, member of the Victorian branch of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia to the Tax Reform Association on 8th November 1995. Making decisions for large groups is very difficult. Making decisions in small groups is easier.
Most people prefer to delegate some decisions.
The underlying principle of democracy is that decisions that affect the people should largely accord with the will of the people. One way to improve the prospects of this is for representatives to be elected . The basis of representative democracy is that the collective views of the representatives reflect the collective views of the people. Note that if there is only a single representative this is impossible. Proportional Representation must be based on a corporate body of representatives .