The right to vote in a meritocratic society

[Pope]

I'm writing a paper on voting rights vs meritocracy, and could use some inspiration from across the globe.

 

I'm starting from these two central questions:

 

- What constitutes voting power?

 

- Are we living in a meritocratic society?

 

 

From these, a number of related research questions can be posed, such as:

 

- Do politically active people deserve more input in the decision making process than those who are politically disinterested? If so, what criteria should be handled? (e.g. political involvement, vision... as opposed to the old criteria of wealth or sex)

 

- The entitlement to vote vs the duty to vote. For instance, here in Belgium, we are forced by law to vote, resulting in apathetic protest votes which might otherwise not occur.

 

- May useless elements be removed from society? What constitutes useless/useful? May convicts' voting rights be suspended?

 

- feel free to add...

 

 

I'm doing my research atm and although I find it a bit difficult to translate some of my thoughts in English, I will try to add to the discussion later.

[Theseus]

John Stewart Mill in his book On Liberty suggested that people that have college degrees should have more voting power, yet others should still have a vote that counts, just not as much. He makes a good argument. Does a politician know art better then an artist? Some people are more interested in other areas, its just the way the world works. He makes a very logical argument even if one disagree with him.

 

If we have more informed pleope voting, then our society would be goverened better. We get the leaders we deserve. But in order for this to work, college needs to be much more affordable. I think i read somewhere that in the past 30 years pay has gone up 100 percent about and college tuition has gone up 430 percent. This is not acceptable i believe to make john mills idea to work. College shouldn't be for the super rich, neither the super in debt. Its pathetic when a college grad gets a degree only to get into his profession to make 30-40K a year job. Maybe that doesnt sound so bad if your health coverage and retirement plan are included though, depending on what city one is living in. But 30K isn't enough to pay the thousands in student loans all the time.

 

We have a partial meritocracy i think. The Gov does give any citizen a chance for college tuition. There are also chances for welfare, and even healthcare if one is in poverty. So that gives people at a lower income to rise out of it out of the sweat of their brow. Then again there are lobbyists that are constantly against the working person who works hard with there hands, who might work harder then lets say a person who doesn't create ANYTHING like in wallstreet, who just screw the system.

 

We have problems, add masses of people to any equation and things get complicated.

[Gorgon]

What does one have to do with the other, a meritocracy means the best people are promoted by virtue of their accomplishments. Are you suggesting we should dole out voting power the same way.

 

At least part of the American meritocracy is an illusion, apply yourself, work hard, and if you try hard enough you get a slice of the American dream. It's ideology, the facts are that wealth or poverty, influence or indifference more often runs through generations. If you have a cushion of wealth to pass on to your children to buy them expensive educations they are going to do better regardless of talent.

Edited February 21, 2009 by Gorgon

[Pope]

What does one have to do with the other, a meritocracy means the best people are promoted by virtue of their accomplishments. Are you suggesting we should dole out voting power the same way.

 

Not suggesting, but wondering whether doing so would produce positive/negative results, from a moral point of view.

 

It is a given that some people are more politically involved than others. Do you believe it is fair that they have the same amount of (voting) input into political decision making than politically inactive people, given that the degree of political involvement is often a result of better access to higher education (e.g. children of wealthier parents are luckier than poor people in this regard)? Would it be morally justifiable to add more weight to those people's votes?

Edited February 21, 2009 by Pope

[Gorgon]

That would be undemocratic obviously, the first step in the creation of an officially stamped elite caste, and who would decide what citizens were more worthy than others.

[Asol]

Pope, on your questions

 

Do power seeking people deserve more power than power giving people? When you look it that way where is the need and the room for opinion?

 

We have such and such govt and heirarchy from the people that would rather be laid back 9-5ers(if not outright welfare) and power givers rather than reality facers.

 

OKAY BUT.....

 

....These people are fickle and consume themselves and each other by doing things like killing their communties with the walmarts and other bigboxes, foreign products from exploitated labor ect. They borrow themselves and others to death and blame it on the lender, how often does the lender walk into your home? Big bigbad Walmart send the job overseas or did their customers demand it?

 

Replace rich get richer with lazy get lazier for a real picture.

 

So you have a class at least in this country who wants it 'easy' yet completely works against the possibility of it being given to them.

In america it is becoming a welfare state particularly after the mortgage 'fix' comes out with a participation optional meritocracy on the side.

This leads to the can/should the useless be removed/punished. Yes 'they' definately need to be disempowered and removed from the political process. Where to draw the lines though.

 

Entitlement or right vs obligation to vote: This is a decision for the leadership. If you benefit from or want/need the services of government you are subject to having your compensation for or participation in the process dictated.

[Theseus]

The right not to vote is a liberty unto itself. I do not see why the government would make it mandatory. Hes only harming himself by not giving himself a voice to be heard. Let those that are disinterested in government be what they will. Making it a law to vote is just taking away a personal right. If we keep on agreeing to the government making laws such as this one, it may be a slippery slope to fascism perhaps.

[theslug]

We shouldn't have any humans that govern others but instead a massive central networking mainframe that resides over humanity. We can worship it as our god and benevolent ruler. Then arnold can grab a shotgun and die heroically as he kills over from a heart attack while fighting the sentient computer apocalypse.

[Hell Kitty]

Being more politically involved doesn't make your views any less ridiculous than those who are politically inactive.

[taks]

it's been my experience that the more politically involved actually have more ridiculous ideas. that's why they're involved, so they can push them on everyone else.

 

taks

[Enoch]

Anybody else thinking of the first chapter of Catch-22?

 

(At least I think that bit's in the first chapter. Somewhere near the beginning, anyway.)

[Kaftan Barlast]

One idea that makes sense is that you should only be allowed to make a decision if you have a clear understanding about the details of the matter at hand. We have people voting for politicians without any real idea of their political standpoints, and we have politicians voting on laws about things they dont understand. The recent "FRA law" that was voted through a while ago is a prime example of the latter. Very few, if any, of the politicians that voted knew what they were voting on and the consequences thereof.

 

We could have a system where you would have to answer a small test, 10 questions or so, to check that you understand the basics, before youre allowed to vote.

[Gorgon]

They already handle that in primary schools. You can't graduate from anywhere without taking a social sciences course.

 

I'm sure the US is the same, although you can't force people to listen.

[Moatilliatta]

We could have a system where you would have to answer a small test, 10 questions or so, to check that you understand the basics, before youre allowed to vote.

Who would design the questions? We all have different ideas about which values are important in a voter and which factual questions would show interest or disinterrest.

 

The basic problem of the idea of meritocracy is that noone can define merit in a way that makes everyone happy, not even the mreit to decide merit.

 

- Are we living in a meritocratic society?

No, definately not. We measure our politicians by popularity and popularity isn't inherently bound to merit in any way.

 

 

@Enoch

This?:

"A chaplain," Dunbar said when the chaplain had visited him and gone. "Did you see that? A chaplain."

"Wasn't he sweet?" said Yosssarian. "Maybe they should give him three votes."

"Who's they?" Dunbar demanded suspiciously.

[Walsingham]

Three problems from where I'm standing:

 

1. In representative democracy the vote does not get translated directly into policy. This is probably just as well, since no-one knows much about governemental issues like inflation or defence. even if one knows about one area you don't know about all of them.

 

2. Given the above, the purpose of the vote seems to me to be about protecting the voter from abuse, rather than making proactive decisions. All persons have the equal potential to be abused, so having an equal vote seems fair. Although on reflection an idiot probably has more capability to be abused, and should perhaps have more votes.

 

3. The concept of merit seems difficult to articulate. I suspect that you would eventually turn to the concept of 'general Intelligence', or IQ. This is flawed on two grounds. IQ is firstly linked to economic status and ethnic background, so your state would come to resemble an apartheid monstrosity. IQ is also a nonsense in theoretical terms, but that's a long argument tackled better in the book 'IQ in question'.

[Meshugger]

Hum, i have some problems with a meritocracy:

 

1) Ass***** and general bad people are rewarded in the current system, since they can lie, cheat and abuse peolpe's trust in something good. The good guy, like anyone else, always has faults, which are deliberately exploited by the bad guys. The regular Joe with the "live and let live"-attitude will not get anywhere in politics, since they can't and will not start a war against poverty, drugs, terrorism and whatnot. Point being, a meritocracy benefits only those that are most eager to govern everybody else. Not exactly a dreamscenario.

 

2) Meritocracy might work in sensere environment with an informed public, which is exactly why i am against it. The political environment is neither sensere, nor is the public informed enough to work as a watchdog or understanding the issues at hand in the longer term.

[Rostere]

The problem is not really if more politically engaged people also should have more political power, but who should choose these people. And who would choose those? At the core of the problem lies the fact that there is nothing we can say or do to prove that we are genuinely better persons than others, it is only a matter of what you personal opinion.

[Monte Carlo]

The right to vote should be won only by serving in the military, especially against giant insectoids on faraway planets.

[taks]

how did i know that was going to come out, eh, citizen?

 

taks

[Gorth]

Citizenship is much overrated.

 

Said the guy who has been living in foreign countries without the right to vote for a number of years now

[Gorgon]

Countries are overrated. We should live in village sized anarchist communes practicing direct democracy.

 

The representative part of representative democracy is the problem, without it corruption, two facedness, playing to the lowest common denominator, these things just aren't as useful when you look the constituency in the face every day.

[Walsingham]

Countries are overrated. We should live in village sized anarchist communes practicing direct democracy.

 

You clearly didn't grow up in a village.

 

Nor, I suspect with less conviction, did you grow up in an anarchy.

 

Give me civilisation like New York, where I there are scarves, cappucinos, and rosy cheeked women, all available to for sale 24 hours a day.

[Monte Carlo]

Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you the Romans: didn't matter where you came from or who you were - 22 years in the Legions and you got a big sack of salt, enough land for a farm and citizenship. Can't say fairer than that.

[Walsingham]

If you're going to bring in the legions I suppose it's worth pointing out that the legionaries frequently took a more direct approach to political appointment. I understand that the praetorians occasionally auctioned off the imperial throne.

[Tigranes]

22 years in the Legions and you got a big sack of salt, enough land for a farm and citizenship. Can't say fairer than that.

 

That is, by the way, 22 years of being stationed in the middle of some God-forsaken crapland, not to mention the occasional threat of death. And then, if you're lucky, you'll get that plot of land in some other God-forsaken crapland!

 

I understand that the praetorians occasionally auctioned off the imperial throne.

 

Other legions did, too, and I suppose some of them did get on the gravy train when it all worked out.