Let's debate "plural voting" (Mark Twain's "Curious Republic of Gondour")

Great Debates
1

In Mark Twain’s 1875 short story “The Curious Republic of Gondour” – http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/gondour.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondour – a fictional republic has solved the problem of the overwhelming political influence of “the ignorant and non-taxpaying classes” by adopting a system of “enlarged” suffrage: Everybody gets one vote, but you can earn additional votes by virtue of your wealth, education, or services to the state. I.e., if you cast a vote for candidate X, and you carry three votes, your vote is counted three times. In the story, this system improves the quality of elected leaders, besides giving everyone an extra incentive to improve their own education, etc.

I’ve read that John Stuart Mill argued for such a system of “plural voting”* but I can’t find a cite, other than this, which does not identify the exact source: http://www.humanities.uci.edu/~rmoeller/body/mill_pluralvoting.html

I have read that a prominent American conservative in the early 20th Century argued vociferously for such a system, but I can’t recall his name.

Would this be a good or necessary reform? What would it actually change?

My own thinking is, persons of superior wealth and education already have influence in politics far out of proportion to their numbers – via campaign donations, personal connections, and their influence over less-sophisticated persons who seek out their opinions. (In a polysci course I took in college, such opinion-molders were called "sociological stars.) Why give them even more?

*Not to be confused with the “plural voting” system in British elections to the House of Commons before the reforms of 1948, in which a person who owned sufficient property in several boroughs could vote in each of them, and university students could vote both at home and in university. http://www.revision-notes.co.uk/revision/821.html Perhaps “weighted voting” would be a better name for what I’m describing above. Political scientists probably have a technical term for it, but I can’t seem to dig it up.

2

Oh, and I am not talking about Robert Heinlein (who strongly favored a “Republic of Gondour” system). It was somebody from the first half of the century.

3

I found the Mill citation – he discusses plural voting in Chapter 8 of Representative Government – http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/m/mill/john_stuart/m645r/chapter8.html. Scroll down to the middle of the page.

4

It’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard of.

Why the hell would we want to limit the influence of the “ignorant and non-taxpaying classes”. Besides the ballot, what powers to they have over the rich and educated?

Oh yes, they can rise up with their superior numbers. Which is what they’d do unless they were truly retarded.

5

If you want a true “wisdomocracy”, you need to adopt some variation on decentralized absolute democracy (absolute confederacy), in which world population is divided into somethings (3rds, let’s say), each of which is divided into 3rds, and so on until you have tiny little local units determining tiny little local decisions and handling affairs that can be handled on such a local level without any differentiation in status between individuals.

One does hope in such situations, and in the next level up (of three such units, meeting one third as often via the scheduled concurrency of three such local units), that the best ideas will rise to the top, and/or that the ideas most vividly expressed and/or argued for will do so.

And if we also utilize a hierarchy of permanence-of-decisions-made, deliberately crafting a more complicated procedure for scheduling debate, debating, and determining consensus on higher-level decisions than on lower-level ones, for each of the hierarchical levels of authority, we again move to enshrine the ideas that are the most compelling and most compelling argued for over, at this point also putting value on “for the longest duration”.

What gets in the way of “wisdomocracy” in our current system is not the “stupidity of the masses” etc so much as the plentitude of means by which people may ascend to decision-making authority, and exercise it once attained, which do not in any but the most peripheral senses reference the brilliance of the ideas or the general communications skills of the folks promoting them.

I would most vehemently oppose
[/quote]
you can earn additional votes by virtue of your wealth
[/quote]
. Why for the love of al that’s loveworthy should the folks who have trapped more currency in their own pile be rewarded more than they already have been for their endeavors along those lines? At absolute best, in my most capitalistic-approving mode (i.e., ignoring such things as inheritance and starting point considerations in general and pretending that everyone starts off from the same starting line), I’m just barely convinced that the set of human characteristics that lead one to succeed at Monopoly-for-real are particularly praiseworthy. I’ll give you ambition, determination, aspects of intelligence and lust and of wisdom, but take away points in the categories of empathy, cooperation, the tendency to hold out for the most meaningful of reasons/causes, and the characteristic we call, for lack of a better word, humility (actually the embrace of naïveté, the willingness to consider things anew), and also other equally-valid forms of intelligence, lust, and wisdom. And that’s at artificial best (you and me and a few other folks starting off Monopoly from scratch as equal players at game’s kickoff).

God knows I’d love to see democracy expanded beyond “which of these two idiots do you want to make official decisions on your behalf for the next 2-4-6 years”, but rewarding success as measured at some finite starting time strikes me as an incredibly pisspoor idea.

6

You don’t want plural voting – you want fractional voting.

The MIT Sciece Fiction Society (MITSFS) used to do this, and maybe still does. Everyone gets one vote, but they can split it by fractions between the various candidates. 0.75 for candidate A, 0.15 for candidate B, 0.1 for Candidate C. Lets you really express your feelings. And hedge your bets.

7

Mark Twain’s “Curious Republic of Gondour”?

“Hey, Huck, why y’all paintin’ that tree?”

:smiley:

8

I always thought that Robert Heinlen’s solution in Star ship troopers was a good one.
To vote and gain full citizenship you have to serve in the military a set number of years.

But Im not sure if I would call heinlen a conservative, it would be more apt to call him libertarian.

9

Uhh… no. Requiring military service to become a person of consideration in society is more… fascist. I don’t speak for libertarianism as a whole, but that military service idea is pretty much the opposite of libertarianism as I see and understand it.

10

Well I didnt mean that specific instance, Im not even sure if he would advocate it in actuallity.
And I would disagree I consider myself to have some libertarian leanings, and it seems to me the basic tenents of libertarianism are the rights of life liberty and property, (john locke summed up all three in his second treatise on civil government in the term property) and that this really doesnt go against those ideals, where as a conscripted army would.

But if you read Expanding Universe (a collection of short stories and essay by Heinlen) you get the idea that he didnt like government and from his work “The moon is a harsh mistress” one of the main heroes seems to be a libertarian and the whole revolution of the moon seems to create a libertarian state.

Not to mention the advocates for self government lable him as such, but whether thats of any consequence is debateable.

11

But the military-service-required-idea says, in essence, you are a second-class citizen until you forsake a portion of your liberty for a time. A second-class citizen with more limited rights to life, liberty, and property. And in a libertarian society, all citizens should have an equal say - there shouldn’t be a government-mandated caste system.

12

Couple of things about this idea of Heinlein’s:

1.) He expands the idea later (ahhh… forget where) that the individual is not just required to be in “military” service as we know the terms today. He included much of of what we call “the government.” (I.e. there were plenty of non-combat options to choose from.)

2.) I’m not sure that this isn’t in-line with libertarianism. The franchise is available to everyone (see above for pacifists, etc.). This is just an example of how you would trade with the government for a service: you need to give them a chunck of your time to receive the ability to vote. (IIRC, in the book, that was the only thing you got out of the deal; without service, you could live indefinately, own businesses/property/etc.)

3.) All citizens do have the right to vote. The only difference is that citizenship is not granted for being born within the borders. Think of it as if the requirement for citizenship is not being able to pass some scholastic test (like we make immigrants do), but the proof that the person displays an active interest in the government by actively participating in said government.

Regardless of how you classify this concept, Heinlein was very much a libertarian.

13

He may have been, but I disagree that the concept is. It’s a hijack anyway, back to your regularly scheduled thread.

14

Fair enough.

Back to the OP’s question:

I rather like Heinlein’s suggestion (you’re surprised, right?) I think that anyone who wishes to vote should serve in the government for some time before gaining the right to take part in the decision making process. Understanding that there are a wide range of beliefs, etc., I believe that anywhere in our current government will suffice. Don’t like the military (for whatever reason)? Ok, go be a teacher, environmental scientist for a national/state agency, law enforcement agent, DOT worker, public defender, or whatever. Show some responsiblity for your country before you decide that you should help direct it.

(BTW, I don’t have a hard concept on time requirement. 3 to 5 years sounds reasonable to me.)

Should you decide to not take advantage of this requirement for citizenship, if you would have been a citizen (as defined by our current laws), you shall be granted “permanent resident status” and be allowed to work, learn, marry, procreate, purchase services from the government, own property, own/run a business, etc. Just not vote. Given how voters would have the ability to vote down rights for residents, and the residents would have limited legal options, the rights of residents would need to be spelled out and nearly immutable in a constitution. I.e. there would need to be something that states that all rights, etc granted to citizens, withholding the right to vote, are granted to permanent residents.

15

In Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, “lawful residents” of the Federation appear to have full civil rights, equal to those of “citizens.” The only difference is that only citizens are allowed to vote or hold public office.

One might question whether it would really work out that way. In his 1972 book Polyarchy (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300015658/qid=1136398524/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2924742-0975232?n=507846&s=books&v=glance), political scientist Robert Dahl demonstrated a practical connection between the voting franchise and civil rights. In South Africa under Apartheid, white people (who could vote) were effectively living in a democracy while blacks (who could not) were effectively living in a dictatorship – no civil rights, no means of defense against an arbitrary state.

In Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Stirling’s Falkenberg’s Legion/Prince of Sparta SF novels [(collected in one volume as The Prince – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743435567/qid=1136398689/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-2924742-0975232?s=books&v=glance&n=283155), the colony planet of Sparta has a tortuously complex constitution, of which even the heir to the throne says, “I would hate to have to explain it.” One feature is clear: The franchise is limited to persons who have earned citizenship; this is a challenging process which requires certain courses of education, plus militia service with one of the “phratries” (apparently a kind of synthetic tribe). The story is mainly about the rebellion of the voteless noncitizens, the Helots. Interestingly, it is never made clear exactly what is the Helots’ grievance, or what rights or privileges, other than political participation, they are denied which citizens enjoy. In fact, the Helots are presented as the dupes and puppets of a small number of purely evil megalomaniacal leaders. Pournelle himself has written that he modeled the military aspects of the story on Mao’s “low-intensity conflict” Chinese revolution, with the Helots in the role of the Communists.

16

In Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, “lawful residents” of the Federation appear to have full civil rights, equal to those of “citizens.” The only difference is that only citizens are allowed to vote or hold public office.

One might question whether it would really work out that way. In his 1972 book Polyarchy (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300015658/qid=1136398524/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2924742-0975232?n=507846&s=books&v=glance), political scientist Robert Dahl demonstrated a practical connection between the voting franchise and civil rights. In South Africa under Apartheid, white people (who could vote) were effectively living in a democracy while blacks (who could not) were effectively living in a dictatorship – no civil rights, no means of defense against an arbitrary state.

In Jerry Pournelle and S. M. Stirling’s Falkenberg’s Legion/Prince of Sparta SF novels [(collected in one volume as The Prince – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743435567/qid=1136398689/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-2924742-0975232?s=books&v=glance&n=283155), the colony planet of Sparta has a tortuously complex constitution, of which even the heir to the throne says, “I would hate to have to explain it.” One feature is clear: The franchise is limited to persons who have earned citizenship; this is a challenging process which requires certain courses of education, plus militia service with one of the “phratries” (apparently a kind of synthetic tribe). The story is mainly about the rebellion of the voteless noncitizens, the Helots. Interestingly, it is never made clear exactly what is the Helots’ grievance, or what rights or privileges, other than political participation, they are denied which citizens enjoy. In fact, the Helots are presented as the dupes and puppets of a small number of purely evil megalomaniacal leaders. Pournelle himself has written that he modeled the military aspects of the story on Mao’s “low-intensity conflict” Chinese revolution, with the Helots in the role of the Communists.

17

The differences, at least in my mind, are that in aparteid, black’s could not get the vote, and the Helots would have to go through a ‘challenging process which requires certain courses of education, plus militia service with one of the “phratries”.’ In my little world, any resident (even at the age of 105) who wishes to go through the process should be allowed to. That is, government service cannot be denied to a legal resident.

18

you can earn additional votes by virtue of your wealth
[/quote]
. Why for the love of al that’s loveworthy should the folks who have trapped more currency in their own pile be rewarded more than they already have been for their endeavors along those lines? At absolute best, in my most capitalistic-approving mode (i.e., ignoring such things as inheritance and starting point considerations in general and pretending that everyone starts off from the same starting line), I’m just barely convinced that the set of human characteristics that lead one to succeed at Monopoly-for-real are particularly praiseworthy. I’ll give you ambition, determination, aspects of intelligence and lust and of wisdom, but take away points in the categories of empathy, cooperation, the tendency to hold out for the most meaningful of reasons/causes, and the characteristic we call, for lack of a better word, humility (actually the embrace of naïveté, the willingness to consider things anew), and also other equally-valid forms of intelligence, lust, and wisdom. And that’s at artificial best (you and me and a few other folks starting off Monopoly from scratch as equal players at game’s kickoff).
[/QUOTE]

This illustrates how the cultural assumptions of another century can be as different of those of another civilization. In Britain, until 1948, voting rights were based on property. If you owned sufficient property in two boroughs, you could vote in both boroughs. Here’s Mill’s take on it (from Representative Government, link above):

Observe that this argument is, strictly speaking, as logical as yours – but starts from a completely different set of first principles.

You can begin to see why modern Libertarians often regard Mill as a proto-Libertarian.

19

. . . That’s an interesting idea, but for a different thread.

20

The underlying motivaion is a desire to avoid the bread-and-circuses problem that did in the Roman Republic.