I know, I know, “one man, one vote” but just pipe down and listen for a second, willya?
Thank you. Now, if a system were proposed by which “deserving” people got more than a single vote, what would be your suggestion for how to apportion those votes? For example, I might suggest to satisfy younger people arguing that they deserve a vote before the age of 18 “Okay, you get 1 vote when you turn 12, then at 18 you get to vote twice, and then when you turn 25, you get three votes like anyone else.” Or maybe a felon gets reduced to a single vote, and immigrants get a single vote for their first few years after getting citizenship, and gradually work their way up.
Or maybe you get extra votes if you’ve voted in the previous election. Or extra votes for serving in the military. Or for teaching in a public school for a certain number of years.
Personally, I think this would be really cool. That, or I need to get down to work and stop having these loopy ideas out in public.
The basic problem with any system of this sort is that it’s a positive feedback loop. The people with extra votes have more sway in who gets into office, and the people in office have more sway in who gets extra votes. Note that capitalism tends to work this way, too, with more capital resulting in even more, but we have things like progressive taxes and technological innovation to redistribute the wealth.
With political power, once the voting starts becoming substantially unequal, the major redistributive system often involves decapitating people.
I’ve seen an idea for a Corporate State system, where citizens are stockholders in the national Corporate Entity. Instead of Congress, you choose the Board of Directors. You can buy more votes by acquiring stock, but it isn’t 1-to-1. Holding 1 share nets you 1 vote, but holding 10 shares nets you 2 votes, 100 for 3, etc. At the end of the year, excess tax money is dispersed in the form of dividends.
