One Man, One Vote?

Economics Political Theory
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I don’t have a blog on Mises to post the articles I write so I figured I’d post them here and get some feedback.

One Man, One Vote?

Does democracy work? I know that many libertarian minded individuals would read that question and respond that the United State is a republic. They may remember that a democracy is where 51% of the populace oppresses the other 49%. After considering this along with the elections of presidents over a period of time I wondered if maybe we had something wrong. I eventually thought up a solution to this problem in democracy. Instead of one vote lets have one vote per candidate. First let’s consider some problems with the current system.

Our two party system has created a sentiment of America that, “if you’re not with us you’re against us.” This sentiment has torn the nation apart many times and in many ways; most notably during the Civil War whose disastrous consequences are still being felt to this day. Power and money are divided among the two parties and they duke it out on TV, Radio, and other media. They each have a listed core of values and principals but in the end will choose candidate that are going to win. More important than integrity or liberty is to be the party with the man in that big white house.

Although third party candidates do exist and have made effectual runs for government positions, history has shown that they generally have almost no chance of winning positions with any real political power. There are a few reasons for this. The third party candidate does not have the resources that a candidate from a mainstream party has. Since most people consider that it is more important for an opposing candidate to win they will vote for candidate they believe has a chance. This is of course going to be the opposing mainstream candidate.

Something I have found strange about the president is that he is elected not necessarily by the majority of citizens, or even necessarily voter, but by the largest number of votes. Despite the electoral process this is generally the case. If you consider the number of US citizens of voting age than Obama won the presidency with only 30% of the population supporting him. Is this truly the spirit of democracy? I say, “No”, and that there is a better way.

Instead of a voter being allowed only one vote he is instead allowed one vote per candidate. This would eliminate the need for voters to settle for the lesser of two evils because they can vote for their ideal candidate. I’ve even considered that a voter should also be allowed to vote against a candidate. That is, a voter voting against a candidate would actually cancel out a vote for the candidate.

Applying this idea to the previous election I have no doubt would have resulted in the presidency belonging to Dr. Ron Paul. I had many discussion during the election where the conclusion of the voter was that they liked Dr. Paul but didn’t think he could beat Obama, or that he couldn’t beat McCain. If these individuals could have also voted for Paul along with their own candidate I believe the numbers would radically change at the outcome. Especially if they were allowed to remove a vote from candidate of which they did not approve.

If this method of voting were set to action I believe the winning candidate would be a stronger representative of what the populace wants in a candidate. I hope this topic can become a discussion in libertarian ideology.

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Libertarians don’t vote.

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How can anyone represent the views of anyone else? The idea of representation is a lie. Taxes are extortion.

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You should listen to this: http://media.mises.org/mp3/audioarticles/2874_Hoppe.mp3

Are you familiar with public choice theory?

http://fee.org/media/video/public-choice-2/

There are always those who romanticize about how a government ought to work.

It always amazes me how such excuses for the tyranny of the government are just blindly accepted. Don’t people know that there are many Democracies with coalition governments with multiple parties sitting in the legislature? Do you honestly think they are any less tyrannical? On the contrary, there are more paths to just shift responsibility, and just more bribes to have to handout in order to actually pass anything.

How many of those 30% voted for the lesser evil?

And anyway, the system is compulsory. The support cannot be regarded as real support, for the system of elected officials is not voluntary. The choice of not choosing either candidates does not exist. If I choose not to vote, do I get to keep my money?

I think if the libertarian philosophy is to make progress, it better steer away from the idea that government, in any shape or form, has a legitimate place in the free society.

I think some of your observations do signal that you are recognizing that something doesn’t quite fit. I strongly encourage you to listen and watch the above media in order to challenge yourself further.

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My goal isn’t as much to find the absolute perfect libertarian system but instead just to improve what we have. This is much in same vein of debating how we could go back to a gold standard. Although there may be a better way to do something does that mean we should reject smaller steps towards the goal.

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Nobody is rejecting small steps towards a goal. It’s just that there may be more productive ways in which such these steps can be taken.