A simple equation to create equality in a capitalist democracy
- Thread starter Dr Eloa
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
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Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
What if your wealth is 0? Do you become (joint) supreme dictator or something?
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
Or heavily in debt. Minus votes from the party of your choice.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
so the richest person could buy a load of votes for very little, several tens of thousands of pounds, which distributed to dolees would enable the rich people to wield even more power out of all proportion to their number
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
I think he's suggesting the opposite, that We the People would have more votes than the Stinking Aristos.
But it's so hard to tell with these loons these days.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yes, he's suggesting that. but if the poorest people have the most votes then buying them will be cheaper.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
May be hard to persuade people to stick to it. 
But the idea has a certain elegance in the abstract. 
But the idea has a certain elegance in the abstract. DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
does it include a brief period of Terror?
classicdish
Well-Known Member
Why would people sell their power for peanuts, when they could instead gain far more money by using that power for their own interests?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
why do some working class people vote tory?
engels, who thought that socialism could be voted into power, agreed with you. but he was wrong too.
classicdish
Well-Known Member
Who said anything about socialism? Have there ever been voting systems used like the one described?
I am asking a simple question: why would the poorest 5% (for example) sell their votes for peanuts when these votes would give them so much power over the entire countries finances that they could get as much as they wanted for themselves (at least until the next bunch of 'poorest people' did the same)?
The answer to the OP is that a political system like this would indeed see a rapid trend towards wealth equality.
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
The poorest sections of society already have more votes than the richest, surely?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
shh!
Because they know that the owners of the money would just ignore the election and tell them to fuck off.
purenarcotic
Conveniently Pocket Sized
The first mistake here is suggesting that it may be possible to be equal under capitalism.
classicdish
Well-Known Member
But we are discussing a theoretical situation here.
The OP proposed a theoretical political system and asked what its outcome would be. It is reasonable to answer the question assuming that the system has a chance to operate as intended. If we instead assume that the system is destroyed immediately and replaced by a dictatorship, for example, then we aren't really discussing the original scenario as proposed.
classicdish
Well-Known Member
So how would you describe the situation where income and wealth was continually redistributed fairly evenly across the entire population within a country? Are you saying that it is actually *impossible* to do, and if so why? Would this situation continue to be described as 'capitalism'?
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
You may be right - in which case that's the reason why it's never been tried.
You might be wrong though - maybe there'd be a kind of free loader effect/prisoners dilemma, whereby people realise that just them selling their vote won't change the outcome and they can't stop others assuming the same, which leads to enough people selling to make it worth the toff's while.
Kind of like this:
Bob has 200 votes because he's skint as fuck. He knows there's millions more with 200 votes each. Rich bloke offers £200 for his votes. He knows his votes won't be the difference between the nice woolly egalitarian party getting in and the nasty right wing bastard party getting in so he thinks fuck it - I'll sell - and he's even more likely to sell when he realises that the toff is offering all the others with 200 votes loadsamoney, and so bob thinks 'fuck that - I'm not gonna be the only one not selling my vote when the toff's bought everyone else's so he can elect the nasty right wing bastard party - I'll end up £200 down and we'll still get a nasty right wing bastard party government'.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
That's an interesting point.
Ok, let's assume this system exists and somehow it's functional. I won't speculate as to how that might be possible.
There needs to be some starting point with income inequality, where everyone is assigned their voting weight for the upcoming election. Clearly anyone who doesn't sell their vote will be voting in people who want to reduce inequality - that's the only platform those at the bottom are going to vote for. If the society is anything like ours at its starting point, there will be far more people at the bottom end of the wealth scale than the top end. The votes of those at the top end will be essentially worthless.
But they would have to buy off a really hell of a lot of people at the bottom end to make a worthwhile difference - and there would be a powerful counter to that in the shape of the prospective benefit to people of using the power of their vote to vote in someone to represent them. It wouldn't just be the odd person the rich would need to buy off, but a whole class of people. They'd have to essentially change places with the poor to buy their votes, and why would they do that?
I think such a system would tend towards income equality. It would only need a very small feeling of solidarity to achieve that.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
this is a very silly thread
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Why? Our society doesn't demonstrate any such thing - and there are all sorts of reasons currently offered for why this is the case - the existence of inequality meaning that those at the bottom might think they have a chance to become rich, the belief that inequality is natural, or is the right reward for effort expended, the belief that voting for people who say they want to reduce inequality but who do not and have no intention of doing any such thing and so on. What if the those who don't vote for people who want to reduce inequality and ally with those further up the scale who will not be voting for a leveling either - that would make them into a potential permanent majority, or at very least a large minority who would have significant anti-equality political influence.
In the period when the mass vote was steadily being introduced many bourgeois thinker expressed fears of the democratic swamp that they were about to be drowned in - that their special voice and interests would be swept away by the tide of newly enfranchised human filth. Didn't happen did it?
And what sort of voting do we mean in this model - do we mean formal representative democracy? Direct democracy? Economic democracy? What? And what sort of equality? Equality of opportunity? Economic equality - of what, income, wealth, assets? Strict economic equality? Political equality? Educational equality?
And this if before we even get to the key understanding that politics - voting - is not the source of inequality. In fact it is its central legitimiser.
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Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
I've never seen any evidence that people vote in their own interests. Certainly not when they've been fed a constant diet of crap telling them that their interests are the same as the top 1%.
classicdish
Well-Known Member
Why is it silly? It's just discussing a theoretical situation or idea, like a vast amount of political thinkers have done throughout history.
Maybe it should have been in the theory forum?
classicdish
Well-Known Member
The DWP make you fill out a form detailing all your finances before you can make a claim for benefits, so while it isn't exact (for example their ignore things like car ownership) it is far from impossible to do.
classicdish
Well-Known Member
Have they ever been voting under a system like the one outlined?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Irrelevant - if their interests are their interests and people unfailingly vote for them this would be demonstrated behaviour in all systems we have had up to now. It's not.
classicdish
Well-Known Member
People vote tactically - they pick from the viable options on offer. Under a system like the one on offer their options would probably be very different from what they normally are.
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
I don't see that as relevant. If you give someone a hundred votes, nothing will change unless you also change the way people decide how to vote. If you can still carpet bomb people with ads distorting the issues, no one will have a clear view of what the issues are, let alone what their interests are.
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