In a recent Brown University Daily Herald editorial, student Oliver Hudson put forward his criticisms of universal suffrage in the US. Citing capitalism and shared investments, he argues that voting rights and power should be allocated to those who pay taxes. A person who pays higher income tax will have a vote with more weight than one who pays less or none. If your jaw is dropping, then you are having the reaction that many Brown Daily Herald readers did in the days after this article's publication and its subsequent "going viral."
Although I think it is an absurd idea that shows Hudson's lack of understanding or compassion for the under-privileged in America, he forced me for 20 minutes to envision this alternate system of vote allocation. He proposes that, because a person pays more taxes to the government, that person should have more of a say in what the government is (i.e. who the government is) In a way, Hudson tries to fuse capitalism with democracy into one ideal system for the "haves" and a nightmare for the "have-nots." He uses a corporation as an example. Shareholders buy their shares, and gain more influence based on their number of shares. What he proposes is that those who pay more in taxes will be "buying" more votes.
The problem with this system, of course, is the problem that we already face. Wealth is not equally distributed, so neither is power. However, under our current system, people of all socio-economic classes are generally able to vote. This allows candidates to run and count on the support of a certain group (e.g. lower-class urban residents). With the stratification of wealth in the US, Hudson's weighted-suffrage plan would place large weights on the votes of the upper class, and most likely render useless the votes of those under the poverty line and the unemployed. Yes, it is an Atlas-Shrugged-way of looking at things, but it is also an opinion that is held by more than just this Brown student.
I want to preface this by saying I wholeheartedly disagree with Mr. Hudson's proposed plans. But let's look at this from his side, and to do that, I'm going to put on my Tea Party (note I did not say Republican) thinking cap.
ReplyDeleteThere are people in this country who would be content living off the government and doing no work at all. When they vote, it will be for their interests, most likely so they can give themselves more government money. And the rich have to vote as equals to those in the lower class even though they are putting more money into the government. This, as you can see, is hideously unfair.
Now let's implement Mr. Hudson's plan. The poor "free riders" no longer have a say in governmental policies. Now, the wealthy tax payers are making spending cuts to the money given to those freeloaders, so what do they do? Well they get a job of course! Now with the money they make, they can pay a little in taxes and get some voting power. And, with voting power as an incentive those freeloaders now want to be hardworking individuals.
Of course things always sound better on paper than in real life. The nation's wealthy would no doubt figure out exactly how much money they needed to pay to keep the majority vote and send the rest off for safe keeping. The poor would get poorer, the rich would get richer, and all would be right in the world.
When I first read Ernesto's essay, I agreed with what he was saying. But after reading Nigel's, I agreed with Nigel. It initially sounds like a good idea, but is just not practical. As big as the wealth gap is now, it will only get bigger. The rich will vote for people that will make them richer and the poor will have no say in the matter and eventually just get poorer. The wealthy have no real advantage in our tax system other than they are rich. But with taxes increasing (especially after the new tax plan is implemented), the rich will be forced to pay more taxes and will slowly be pushed down into the upper middle class. But if you look at this situation in perspective, people in the upper middle class are still better off than those who are poor. But then if you look at it from the rich's point of view, they are giving away money that they earned through hard work. It is a difficult situation to fix and in my opinion is just unfixable.
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