Egoistic voting

Election after election one can observe how politicians make promises to the most common denominator in order to garner votes. Most people don’t like taxes, so promise less taxes. The majority is misinformed about nuclear, then it’s time to promise abandoning nuclear. People want jobs, well promise them more jobs!

Populist politicians especially use fear to get votes. It’s not that they hate foreigners, it’s that we have to care of our own first otherwise we’ll live in poverty, taxes will have to increase to pay for others and who would want that?

All these promises have one thing in common: they are possible because

We don’t vote for the prosperity of others, but for that of ourselves.

Ourselves being the individual or the individual’s group. If something happens or should happen that doesn’t benefit us, we more often than not, opt not to do it. When we do it’s to get that warm, fuzzy feeling inside that we did something considered nice or that we believe in.

However the latter does indeed somehow benefit the person or their group very often. A good example are parents sacrificing time, money and effort for kids since they belong to the group.

Is that wrong?

Well, yes and no. No, it’s not wrong to do stuff favorable to yourself and your group, but to do so without regard for others – or in fact go as far as willingly hurt another individual or group for your gain – is wrong IMHO.
Not only is it bad for them, but ultimately it’s bad for you because in a round-about way, you will pay for the straits of others.

Voting for your group to do better will unequivocally mean another does worse. And if you’re already doing better than the other group, then you most likely already voted against that group because they are having a negative effect on your group. Making them worse off will only compound the effect.

Of course the are people who aren’t doing well and they will aggressively vote for their group to do better, but that again creates an “us vs. them” mentality. Every social class is gunning to get a bigger piece of the pie and that only leads to more division; more “us vs. them”.

How it should be

There are a few sayings that have stuck with me which over time have proven to bear truth.

United we stand, divided we fall

This is the problem with identity politics. They are made to divide and conquer. They keep us firmly in our own groups to “fight” against others. Most often the “other” groups are actually a group you do belong to.

Society moves at the pace of the slowest member

Laws are made to cover the behaviors of our worst members. Ironically, laws lacking to cover the behaviors of the worst members aren’t good either.

Being a rich country doesn’t mean that things are going well for the majority, nor does it mean that the country is ultimately being a positive force in the world.

We should be voting for people and measures that will try to improve things for as many people as possible.

The middle class and above can pay more taxes to support more people.
Accepting, integrating and educating refugees improves natality, introduces new markets, food, thought patterns, products, social and business connections, understanding of other cultures and so much more.

Enabling a poorer country to improve its economy, infrastructure and education will also open up new markets and even decrease the number of refugees. Simple monetary donations will most likely end up in the pockets of corrupt leaders and business people. Clothing and appliance donations destroy the local industry of those countries.
What does help is going there, educating them, investing in their businesses, or voting for politicians willing to do the above there.

All in all, the better off the poorest members of our world are, the better off the rest is and the better off you are. Raise the lowest standards to raise the highest ones.

This brilliantly touches upon the core of my argument

What’s wrong with democracy?

A few years ago I had an interesting discussion with friends where I asked them which system of government they’d like. Most friends simply said democracy is the best we can do and wanted to end the discussion. Unfortunately this is a common response:

Whatever! I don’t care or wanna know, just give me something better.

Yet another friend suggested benevolent autocracy as a better system, but let’s say I have a problem with putting my trust in a small group of people much less a single person. A colleague even said he didn’t see problems with the current system.

Democracy has liberated the masses, raised our standard of living and we should be happy it exists.

I somewhat agree, but mostly believe that we can do better.

Perceived problems

After a few years of discussions these are the problems I noticed representative democracy has.

Admittedly, these aren’t all intrinsic problems of democracy but things surrounding it. Just like communism, democracy is an ideal and only slightly more realistic. But what can we do and does a better system exist?

Dilution of votes

Normally, a representative democracy has multiple levels of government: local/municipal, state and national chambers.

Local level is the level where votes have the most direct impact. Often times one votes directly for a candidate and not for a party, but this can vary of course.

Once one has to vote for state or national level (once again, it depends on the country), one doesn’t directly vote for most candidates and instead one votes for a party that will in turn vote for a representative internally. In countries with coalitions, representatives may come from coalition parties which may even be on different sides of the aisle.

In other words, the higher you go, the less your vote means and the less impact it has. Now, this isn’t completely a problem since the more people a government impacts, the more stable you’d like it to be. Too many cooks spoil the broth and too many representatives just create a larger, inefficient, expensive and cacophonous government.

On the other hand, the voice of the people still has to be heard. The impression I have right now is that people vote according to who might win, not in what they believe in.

The “useful vote”

In French there’s a term “le vote utile” aka “the useful vote”. It comes paired with the belief that, if you don’t vote for the bigger party, you’re throwing your vote away to a smaller party. In countries with a first past the post system – a system I believe should be abolished btw – that may well be case, but in those where votes are counted differently or coalitions are possible, that notion is complete horsefart.

Voting for what you believe in is not a wasted vote.

Especially when the biggest party looks like it’s about to lose a vote, the talking heads will call out to voters to “stop the nazis” or “stop the right wings” from winning. What they mean to say is “We’ve been paid to tell you how to vote. Don’t make up your own mind”. Which brings me to my next point

Corruption and accountability

Politicians have been caught red-handed in every level of government accepting bribes, evading taxes, employing members of the family for fictitious jobs, having sex with minors, etc., but nothing happens to them. They rarely get voted out or actually punished for their behavior. There barely any repercussions. Sure, once in a while somebody steps down, but come the next election cycle, they’re back again – just like hemorrhoids or herpes.

The system doesn’t produce honest people

Once you enter it, the way everything works doesn’t seem to promote honesty. Honest and naive people are changed by it or simply have no interest in entering it. The constant battle for votes can’t keep people honest.

Once one gets into a position of power, it’s difficult to get knocked down. Elected parties and officials can sit in office for multiple decades simply because of name recognition and financial status. Elections aren’t won by values, they’re won by money. Why?

A misinformed or (willfully) ignorant public

The majority doesn’t give a crap about politics. To some it’s comparable in annoyance to a yearly prostate exam: you know it’s prudent, probably necessary, but it always feels like you’re getting fucked.

I honestly understand: it isn’t an interesting topic to deal with, nor is it easy to get facts straight. With the amount of misinformation floating around, who the hell knows what actually happened? The PC crowd certainly hasn’t improved the situation by devolving it into a “he said, she said” game every time someone opens their mouths.

Politics is treated more as entertainment or sports. A side is picked and stuck to no matter what. Unless of course the side one has picked thoroughly eats your face, some people might change their minds. Some need multiple their faces eaten multiple times to see the error of their ways and some just never learn.

Wat do? 🤷‍

A different kind of democracy?

Also called delegative democracy, liquid democracy revolves around giving voters more power by being a middle ground between direct democracy and representative democracy. This is achieved by giving people the option to delegate their votes at will, instead of being forced to vote directly on issues or to vote for someone who represents a section of their opinions.

An example would be a nurse deciding to vote on bills involving nursing and delegating their vote for issues on finance to a banker friend. Hopefully this would create a more organic web of delegates and people would be able to contribute to popular issues.

Looking at how things go, however, when citizens get a bigger say in how their country is run, their ignorance has an even greater effect. Referendums on quite a few issues have shown that. Brexit is quite a good example.

Stay with the same?

Maybe we don’t have to completely change the type of democracy and changes within representative democracy will do.

One thing’s for sure, sitting on the side lines and complaining about it ain’t gonna change jack shit.

Decisions are made by those who show up

C.J Craig – The West Wing