And even the larger parties are not at all identical, especially when compared to the US' Democrats vs Republicans (although I am aware that this is in the US largely due to the "gridlock" mentioned in the article). Also, even the larger traditional right-wing party VVD is relatively left-wing when compared to US politics--they even consider themselves "liberals", to the point that the word itself is often associated with right-wing politics (the previous chairwoman Femke Halsema of our Green Party sometimes explicitly referred to herself as "liberal", to mess with this preconception, and try and reclaim the term).
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Independence_Party 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podemos_%28Spanish_political_pa... 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_Radical_Left
UKIP, Podemos and SYRIZA are all parties that rose to their position of power only after the status quo was already horribly disturbed.
UKIP - While UK feels a bit xenophobic at times, it was only when the financial stability was shattered that a more-extreme-than-current protest movement gained power
SYRIZA - rose to power after Greece economy was first demolished, and then further abused; again, the calm and nice status quo was disturbed
Podemos - I hear Spain has suffered similarly since the financial crisis and is still in the process of starting their recovery
In the U.S., after horrible disturbances, we watch the two parties blame each other on talk radio, Fox News, and MSNBC and then vote the same parties in.
I may get flamed or burned for saying this, but I believe we (in Europe and US) are currently pretty close to the ancient form of Greek democracy.
In the ancient Greece, the vote was a privilege of the free men. The definition of "free man" on the other hand was not quite what we think of in a modern society. To start with, only a few percent of the population actually was eligible to participate. [0] To qualify as a free man, you needed to have position and/or wealth. Usually the two came together.
After all, what good would it do to allow plebs to vote? They could vote against your agenda! Better to control the access to the vote by simply ensuring that at least majority of the voting people already share a certain appreciation for the status quo.
"But, but but... We can vote however we want" you say. Sorry, no you can't. Thanks to the nature of the system, you get to vote between two or three nearly identical alternatives. Outliers will not be even put on the ballot. (I think California is an exception, which introduces its own downsides.)
The choices on the vote are in practice dictated by those with the most power or money. Lawrence Lessig outlined this situation with his only slightly satirical TED talk - a country of Lesters. [1, 2]
But back to terminology. If the power is held by those with wealth, and decisions are made purely among the people who have the most to financially gain from them, what do you call such a system? Is there even a descriptive term for a mix of oligarchy and plutocracy?
The True Greek Democracy?
0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy#Participatio...
1: http://blog.ted.com/2013/04/03/how-we-can-make-elections-abo...
2: http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_t...